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PORTFOLIO 



OF AN 



ARTIST. 



BY REMBRA.NDT PEALE. 



PHILADELPHM : 

HENRY PERKINS, 134 CHESTNUT ST. 

BOSTON :— P ERKINS AND MARVIN, 

114 Washington Street. 

1839. 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1639, by 

Rembrandt Peale, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of 



Pennsylvania. 



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Stereotyped by L. Johnson, Philadelphia. 
C. Sherman, Printer. 



/ 



PREFACE. 



The beautiful creations of this wonderful world are 
chiefly manifested through the sense of sight, and espe- 
cially all that relates to form and colour, distance, light, 
and shade ; with every variation incidental to night and 
day ; through mist and fog ; in the dim twilight ; by the 
lamp's mellow beam ; the cool reflection of the moon ; 
or the copious outpourings of the glorious sun. All 
these variations of objects and effects are minutely pictured 
on the retina of the eye, at the instant of their occurrence ; 
and afford pleasure as much by their immediate novelty 
as their truth,— the novelty of their endless combinations, 
and the undeviating truth and certainty of their impres- 
sions. These constitute a succession of pictures, which 
not only gratify us by their beauty and perfection at the 
moment of perception, but continue to delight the imagi- 
nation, as they are afterwards reproduced by the memory, 
and contemplated in the mind, — a moving mental gallery. 
Thus manifestly has it been the design of a beneficent 
Creator to endow us with the means of a rational, inno- 
cent, and most abundant enjoyment, which it is gratitude 
to receive and wisdom to employ. 

The other senses, however highly they may be prized, 
are productive of inferior enjoyments, though essential to 
existence ; as the proper nourishment of our bodies might 
be neglected, but for the stimulation of hunger, and the 

3 



4 PREFACE. 

gratification of taste ; and we should suffer many incon- 
veniences without the monitions of hearing and feeling. 
The blind can but grope their restricted way through the 
gloom of utter darkness ; yet experience consolation from 
the cultivation and refinement of their senses of touch 
and hearing. Much, however, as the blind and the deaf 
have their states of melancholy privation improved by 
the benevolence of instruction, their condition is infinitely 
inferior to that of those who enjoy the comprehensive 
sense of vision, which concentrates within themselves, 
from the world without, the beauties of creation, — the 
perfect works of the " all-seeing eye." 

The sense of smell, though serving as a guard to health, 
derives its greatest interest from associations that belong 
to poetry and picture ; for it is the sight which enhances 
the enjoyment of the violet-scented gale of spring, the 
aromatic perfume of the orange grove, the fragrant atmo- 
sphere diffused around the magnificent magnolia grandi- 
flora, the sweet of purple blooming clover, the honey- 
scented plains of the waving buckwheat, or the pleasant 
effluvia from the new-made hay ; — take away the pic- 
tures, the poetry, and the music which are associated 
with the scenes of these odours, and the smell alone will 
soon be cloyed by indulgence. 

It is the duty of the sojourner who gravitates upon 
earth, not only to see that he does not stumble, but to 
derive pleasure from the sight even of the rugged path, 
the frowning precipice, »and the deep but silent moving 
stream ; not to limit his thoughts merely to substances 
within his palpable reach, but, with rapid glance and 
without fatigue, to range over distant fields, or climb the 
pathless mountain; not merely to occupy the earth he 



PREFACE. 5 

treads on, but to be conscious of an undisputed right of 
property in the vast concave above him ; — in its clear 
expanse, its splendid scenery of fleecy clouds, in the 
sublimity and grandeur of its storms, and in the magnifi- 
cent structures of its gorgeous sunsets. 

Almost every human being participates in some degree 
in these enjoyments; but in their fullest extent they are 
derived from the refinement of taste, and appertain to 
cultivated minds. The necessities of life unquestionably 
demand our first care and labour, but should not so en- 
tirely enslave us that we can perceive no beauty in the 
graceful corn before it is cut down to furnish our tables 
with bread ; nor should the appetite for meat engross our 
faculties to disregard the landscape which is animated 
with herds, unconscious of their doom. But chiefly is 
it our privilege to derive from social connexions the 
highest enjoyments of which our nature is susceptible, — 
from the contemplation of beauty and innocence ; strength 
and character ; form and expression ; grace and dignity ; 
— in the aspect of single figures, or the endless variety 
of groups, produced by accident or design, in the multi- 
tudinous occupations of our species. These are portraits 
to the eye and mind, or family groups, or conversation 
pieces, or historic compositions, — painted without affect- 
ation or false colouring; models of perfection for the 
study of the artist or amateur ; and pictures of life which 
furnish interest and embellishment to existence. 

Hence the power and influence of the fine arts, de- 
servedly so called, to distinguish them from the coarse 
arts, which administer merely to our necessities. The 
animal man wants nothing more than the rudest furniture 
for his savage wigwam ; but even there is to be found 

1* 



6 PREFACE. 

some indications of refinement, in the ornamented war- 
club, sculptured canoe, or painted buffalo robe. In our 
superior state of civilization, how much greater is our 
enjoyment in contemplating the magnificence of archi- 
tecture, the wonders of sculpture, and the charms and 
mysteries of painting ! Every day adds to the perfection 
of our accommodations ; and a corresponding develope- 
ment of the faculties of mind in the discoveries of science 
and the inventions of art, convince us that refinement of 
intellect and taste is the peculiar prerogative and destina- 
tion of man. Thus honestly he becomes the noblest 
work of God; for he cannot be truly said to be honest 
who does not pay a just degree of attention to the claims 
of beauty, truth, and character; nor does he show his 
right of possession, whilst he is deficient in the expres- 
sion of gratitude for the bounties of Providence, who has 
given him an eye to see and a mind to comprehend. 

Music, poetry, and painting exalt our animal existence 
infinitely above the brute creation, and cheer and recreate 
us in periods of relaxation from the drudgery of business, 
or the sublime abstractions of scientific research. Music 
thrills us with the pictures of sound in combinations of 
endless variety ; painting perpetuates the transient har- 
monies of form and colour ; and poetry, while it deli- 
neates the picture, inspires it with life by measure, sound, 
and sentiment ; for that is not poetry whose painting is 
false, and whose music is discordant with the sentiment 
to be produced. Music should be the soul of poetry 
and the thrilling nerve of picture ; Avhilst painting, in its 
noblest aspirations, and with its universal language, 
should combine their chief excellencies, in correspondent 
unison. The poetry of painting is without words, and 



PREFACE. 7 

its music without sound ; but it is a music whose tones 
are felt by the glancing eye, as it ranges and returns, in 
voluntary movement, over the harmonious composition ; 
and it is a poetry which often gives inspiration to the 
flow of words, slowly descriptive of the instant impres- 
sions produced by the painter's pencil. 

If the enjoyments of sight depended on the perfection 
of beauty, they could be but seldom experienced ; for 
that alone is considered most beautiful which is most 
rare, and distinguished from ordinary nature by superior 
symmetry and complexion. Such extraordinary beauty 
is capable of producing emotions of delight equally rare, 
and as indefinable as the qualities by which they are 
excited ; but pleasure of a more permanent nature is de- 
rived from expression and the indications of character. 
Novelty is the first enjoyment of infancy, and is only 
diminished in the advance of old age ; but in the middle 
term of life, when attention is less frequently excited by 
novelty, our enjoyments are multiplied by the more in- 
teresting combinations which are constantly passing be- 
fore us ; and variety then constitutes the great charm of 
existence. Even the continual changes of the seasons 
are not sufficient to satisfy our fancies, but we leave one 
scene of interest to gaze more intently upon another ; 
and in the contemplation of our own specie^^ however 
perceptible are the changes from infancy to jpaaiihood and 
old age, the mind is more sensibly affecteE by glancing 
rapidly from one to another. If blindness is to be con- 
sidered the most lamentable of all privations, the faculty 
of sight should be appreciated as a gift of inestimable 
value. But of all the enjoyments of sight, to regard the 
human form, and to distinguish the human features, in 



8 PREFACE. 

their various expressions, furnish a field for observation 
and research, as delightful as it is boundless. 

The peculiarities and characteristics of every period of 
life, and of different nations and ages, costumes, complex- 
ions, and manners, are perceived as so many pictures ; 
and, as they are presented under new and varying com- 
binations, produce a sort of visual music, especially when 
animated by the spirit of poetry. Poetic representations 
of such scenes excite in the imagination a series of mental 
pictures ; and music itself owes much of its charm to its 
power of exciting the mind to picture scenes, persons, 
and actions in accordance with its tones. I have often, 
at a well arranged concert, enjoyed in this manner a de- 
lightful revery of imagination, in the conception of vivid 
pictures, produced by successive strains of harmonic 
movements ; — a plaintive or disconsolate lover ; a gay 
bachanal ; a military chieftain ; groups of figures whirling 
and crossing in the merry dance; or horsemen in full 
gallop to the sound of the loud trumpet ; the solemn 
movement of a funeral procession ; the wild tumult of a 
thunder storm ; or the sweet warblings of feathered song- 
sters ; — and these images, often intermingling and follow- 
ing each other as rapidly as the eye can pass in a gal- 
lery from one picture to another, again revert, as the 
strain returns, to its original object. Indeed, it appears 
to me that every complex piece of music may be sup- 
posed to represent a whole picture gallery ; .or, in its 
more limited performances, be confined to an historic 
group, or a single figure. In each instance, hoAvever, a 
certain unity of purpose should prevail. Whether it be 
picture or music, one tone of colouring should charac- 
terize each piece, which should have its lights and 



PREFACE. 9 

shades, its high and low passages, flats and sharps ; and, 
whatever variations and embellishments are introduced, 
it should return again and again to the traits or tones of 
its intended character. 

This excursive kind of enjoyment is not inconsistent 
with the attainments of solid science, and appears to me 
quite in accordance with the natural tendency of the 
human mind ; or at least should be received as its health- 
ful recreation. If a journey is to be accomplished, or a 
science studied, one undeviating course must be labori- 
ously pursued ; but when relaxation is required for the 
physical or mental powers, after the fatigue of labour or 
study, an unpremeditated ramble, without design or sys- 
tem, over hill and dale and flowery field, is calculated 
to insure to both body and mind their best condition of 
health. 

In accordance with this feeling, I have made up the 
contents of my portfolio. They are some of the fruits 
and flowers gathered in my varied wanderings. They 
are but fragments, with little or no arrangement, which 
may be taken up or passed by, as the specimens in a 
Cabinet of Natural History, labelled to designate their 
characters and authenticated by their donor's names. To 
speak plainly, I have brought together passages, which, 
at the moment of reading them, in a desultory manner, 
accorded with my taste, chiefly as a painter ; and only 
ofler them as so many sketches, outlines, or hints. I 
have to regret the loss of many interesting passages, 
which were marked in numerous books of my early 
reading, by their passing, untranscribed, into other hands, 
before the fancy amused me to compile a selection pos- 
sessing some connexion with the art that has chiefly 



«. 




10 PREFACE. 

occupied my life ; in which I have most delighted, and 
to which I have always returned with renovated love, 
after every wandering recreation. 

It was sometimes difficult from a beautiful whole to 
make a short extract. From Avritings composed for 
other purposes, I have selected such passages as suited 
mine ; omitting, often, what appeared to me superfluous, 
or not in character with the painting room or parlour 
table. Many times I have procured a complete picture 
by omitting some lines, or taking only a few verses of 
some long composition which might only serve to fatigue 
the attention, — producing the same effect as a band of 
music, heard from a distance, when nothing but the full 
sounds reach the ear — leaving the imagination to supply 
the intervals. 

Several original pieces have, with some hesitation, 
been thrown into this collection. If these are not found, 
as literary compositions, worthy the distinguished names 
among which they are placed, I trust that the feelings 
they betray will be acknowledged as in unison with the 
prevailing theme. They will serve, at least, to increase 
the variety ; and have a claim upon the reader's polite 
indulgence as humble strangers introduced to his hospi- 
tality. 

The sentiments, opinions, and sayings of various au- 
thors, following each other, generally in a miscellaneous 
manner, possess an appropriate charm ; as it gathers 
them into society, to which we are admitted without 
ceremony, and where we are permitted to enjoy all the 
advantages of a literary conversazione^ at which we are 
licensed to pass from one speaker to another without 
restraint, and to listen only to the most interesting topics, — 




PREFACE. 11 

each person speaking in his own peculiar language. 
But it seldom happens in society that any one person is 
so agreeable that he alone should be heard to speak for 
an hour together, — especially if the subjects which he 
discusses are not extremely interesting ; though he may 
be heard again and again, as other voices and other topics 
intervene to enliven the monotony, so as to excite a re- 
newed attention to his discourse. It is not always the 
continuous length of a dissertation that constitutes its 
value. A single sentence may sometimes convey more 
instruction, and give more pleasure, than a lecture spun 
out to a tedious length, or the mass of laborious learning 
in a ponderous volume. But the thoughts of men of 
genius and mind are frequently embellished with pas- 
sages of beauty and character which admit of separation, 
and should be selected as gems for a cabinet. Besides, 
it may be remarked that observations and descriptions 
broken asunder by episodes, or recurring even at distant 
periods, acquire a new value when brought together; a 
value sometimes, perhaps, not imagined by their authors. 

The effect produced by such a selection in a course of 
miscellaneous reading, is similar to that which is expe- 
rienced when a reader repeats aloud to those about him 
an occasional paragraph, calculated to interest them by 
its singular beauty or force of expression. Indeed, there 
are many works from which it would be sufficient to 
hear nothing else than such selections, if we would es- 
timate the amount of time consumed in exploring the 
mass of matter in which they are often buried, and which 
the taste of the reader might dispose him to reject. 

But the whole may be composed of precious mate- 
rials—all worth reading — all worth possessing in a well 



12 PREFACE. 

assorted library. Still there are certain passages which 
the owner might mark with his pencil, as more especially- 
worth attention and occasional reference. Such passages 
have been transcribed from a few works, to renew the 
enjoyment which they afforded at the moment, and for 
the gratification of others who may possess a similar taste. 

Most persons, on the appearance of a new publication, 
read it rapidly, either with a sole regard to the tale it 
may tell, or to ascertain its general tendency, as it may 
become the topic of conversation. Seldom is it read 
again, however excellent, — often it is not worth the time 
required by other novelties ; — and, perhaps, the only 
portions which may be seriously worthy of preservation 
are overlooked and forgotten. Selections from the works 
of popular writers should be made welcome, not only to 
those who have passed over them in a cursory perusal, 
but to many persons who may never, otherwise, hold 
intercourse with the minds of their authors. 

No injustice is done to the author by this separation 
of sentiments from the narrative of his history. It is 
only the separation of himself from the personages he 
is describing ; in those moments when he suspends the 
thread of his narrative, for the purpose of holding com- 
munion with his reader. The sentiments often appertain 
to the author, — the incidents belong to the story. 

Sometimes, however, both in narratives and works of a 
dramatic character the whole history is carried on and 
completed by a mixed dialogue and narration, without the 
occurrence of a single, or but an occasional sentiment, 
that can be separated from the context. Thus the reader 
is left, from the tendency of the scenes which are hurried 
before his view, to form his own conclusions, and to 



PREFACE. 13 

analyze his own sentiments, if he will pause to reflect, 
instead of yielding to his impatience to learn the course 
of events and the fate of his hero. This deficiency of 
expressed sentiments may not arise from the author's 
incapacity to make them, but be designed to avoid the 
danger of checking the intensity of feeling which he has 
excited. Thus the most interesting country may be 
traversed by the curious observer, without afibrding him 
a single relic to take away, or to refresh his memory ; 
while another may abound in the materials by which his 
cabinet may be enriched for the gratification of his friends ; 
whether or not they have, like him, enjoyed the oppor- 
tunity of original observation. If the deficiency in the 
one case leaves any cause for regret, the abundance in 
the other should excite us to preserve and display the 
treasures we have collected ; sometimes as an inducement 
to others to adventure in the same fields, and sometimes 
to gratify or instruct those who have not the leisure, or 
do not choose to encounter the labour of the enterprise. 

What cabinet is found large enough to contain all that 
might be deemed worthy of collection from the wide 
expanse of travel ? And what library so extensive as to 
possess on its shelves all the written thoughts of men? 
It is therefore a benefit to the great majority of mankind, 
when they are occasionally furnished with the means of 
study which are afforded by select specimens from the 
works of nature and of art in an available cabinet ; or 
with choice or characteristic extracts from the voluminous 
labours of many lives ; — brought down within the reach 
of every eye and every hand. How many volumes, the 
result of much observation and great labour, remain idle 
and useless on the shelves of vast libraries, whose boast 



14 PREFACE. 

only depends on number ; and how often might they be 
made tributary to present use by judicious studies of their 
contents ; by epitomes of their matter ; or by selections 
which would at least be found more interesting than 
their catalogues, or the rows of costly binding and gilded 
titles, which resemble the escutcheon on the lid of an 
entombed coffin. We have seen the work of a painter's 
brush that represented whole rows of books, in which 
the shadows that separated the shelves were of as much 
value as the semblance of the books themselves. It 
would be as well to possess such a library of literary 
cenotaphs, as a vast multitude of inaccessible volumes, 
only to be consulted by the worms which finally will 
destroy them. 

It is pleasant to travel even over accustomed scenes 
with an intelligent companion ; who not only points out 
the succession of interesting objects, but indulges in oc- 
casional reflections, gathering amusement and instruction 
at every step. This constitutes the true value of travel, 
which otherwise is too much like the silent study of a 
map, abounding in facts, but barren of sentiment. We 
are all travellers in the journey of life; but travellers of 
a social disposition, depending much on the assistance 
of each other, and delighting in the intercourse of our 
fellow mortals. We are amused by the variety, instruct- 
ed by the experience, and gratified by the attentions of 
those we meet, or the mutual indications of objects worthy 
of our regard. As a traveller, I have thus sought com- 
panionship in the sentiments, descriptions, and works of 
others ; and only open my Portfolio to such as are willing 
to look into it, in the hope that it may subserve the cause 
of taste and virtue, and at least be received with in- 
dulgence. R. p. 



PORTFOLIO 



OF AN 



ARTIST. 



PORTFOLIO OF AN ARTIST. 



SOUL OF BEAUTY. 

It is, methinks, a low and degrading idea of the sex, 
which was created to refine the joys, and soften the cares 
of humanity, by the most agreeable participation, to con- 
sider them merely as objects of sight. This is abridging 
them of their natural extent of power, to put them upon 
a level with their pictures at Kneller's.* How much 
nobler is the contemplation of beauty, heightened by 
virtue, and commanding our esteem and love, whilst it 
draws our observation ! How faint and spiritless are the 
charms of a coquette, when compared with the real love- 
liness of Sophronia's innocence, piety, good-humour, 
and truth ; virtues which add a new softness to her sex, 
and even beautify her beauty \ That agreeableness which 
must, otherwise, have appeared no longer in the modest 
virgin, is now preserved in the tender mother, the pru- 
dent friend, and the faithful wife. Colours, artfully 
spread upon canvass, may entertain the eye, but not 
affect the heart ; and she who takes no care to add to 
the natural graces of her person any excelling qualities, 
* The fashionable portrait painter in the reign of Charles II. 

2* 17 



18 

may be allowed still to amuse as a picture, but not to 
triumph as a beauty. 

When Adam is introduced by Milton, describing Eve 
in Paradise, and relating to the angel the impressions he 
felt upon seeing her at her first creation, he does not 
represent her like a Grecian Venus, by her shape or 
features, but by the lustre of her mind which shone in 
them, and gave them their power of charming : 

*' Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye ! 
In all her gestures dignity and love !" 

Without this irradiating power, the proudest fair one 
ought to know, whatever her glass may tell her to the 
contrary, that her most perfect features are uninformed 
and dead. I cannot better close this moral, than by a 
short epitaph written by Ben Jonson, with a spirit which 
nothing could inspire but such an object as I have been 
describing. 

" Underneath this stone doth lie 
As much virtue as could die ; 
Which, when alive, did vigour give 
To as much beauty as could live." 

Htigkes. 

POET OF NATURE. 

Then Nature's charms his heart possessed, 
And Nature's glory filled his breast : 
The sweet Spring morning's infant rays, 
Meridian Summer's youthful blaze, 
Maturer Autumn's evening mild. 
And hoary Winter's midnight wild. 



19 

Awoke his eye, inspired his tongue ; 
For every scene he loved, he sung. 

From earth to heaven his genius soared, 

Time and eternity explored. 

And hailed, where'er its footsteps trod, 

In Nature's temple. Nature's God : 

Or pierced the human breast to scan 

The hidden majesty of man ; 

Man's hidden weakness, too, descried 

His glory, grandeur, meanness, pride ; 

Pursued, along their erring course. 

The streams of passion to their source ; 

Or in the mind's creation sought 

New stores of fancy, worlds of thought ! 

Montgomery. 

COURSE OF REFINEMENT. 

The same age which produces great philosophers and 
politicians, renowned generals and poets, usually abounds 
with skilful weavers and ship-carpenters. * * * The 
spirit of the age affects all the arts, and the minds of 
men, being once roused from their lethargy, and put into 
a fermentation, turn themselves on all sides, and carry 
improvements into every art and science. Profound 
ignorance is totally banished, and men enjoy the privilege 
of rational creatures, to think as well as to act, to culti- 
vate the pleasures of the mind as well as those of the 
body. The more these refined arts advance, the more 
sociable men become : nor is it possible, that when en- 
riched with science, and possessed of a fund of conversa- 



20 

tion, they should be contented to remain in solitude, or 
live with their fellow creatures in that distant manner 
which is peculiar to ignorant and barbarous nations. * * * 
Industry, knowledge, and humanity are linked together 
by an indissoluble chain, and are found, from experience 
as well as reason, to be peculiar to the more polished, 
and, what are commonly denominated, the more luxurious 
ages. Hume. 

MEMORY. 

Ethereal power ! whose smile, at noon of night 
Recalls the far-fled spirit of delight ; 
Instils that musing melancholy mood. 
Which charms the wise, and elevates the good ; 
Blest Memory, hail ! O, grant the grateful muse, 
Her pencil dipt in Nature's living hues. 
To pass the clouds that round thy empire roll, 
And trace its airy precincts in the soul. 
Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, 
Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain : 
Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise ! 
Each stamps its image as the other flies ! 
Each, as the varied avenues of sense 
Delight or sorrow to the soul dispense, 
Brightens or fades ; yet all, with magic art, 
Control the latent fibres of the heart. 

'^ -t^ 'If '^ *(» 

And hence that calm delight the portrait gives : 
We gaze on every feature till it lives ! 
Still the fond lover views the absent maid : 

And the lost friend still lingers in the shade ! 

Rogers. 



21 



VALUE OF PORTRAITS. 

There is something delightful in the intercourse which 
we have with another's likeness. It is himself, only 
once removed ; he is visible, not tangible : we have his 
moiety. In a picture of history, there is often, indeed, 
more to admire than in the face of one individual man or 
woman. There is more room for the skill of the artist : 
it is better adapted to exemplify a moral. But the senti- 
ment that chains us to the other is wanting ; we are not 
familiar with it : one is a brave matter — a splendid 
thing; the other is a person, and becomes our friend. 
* * * It is thus that affection and kind feeling are per- 
petuated. It is thus that the form and features of the 
child are made known to its pining parents afar off. It 
is thus that the faces which we loved to look upon are 
redeemed from the grave, and sent to us across deserts 
and woods and mountains, or over a thousand leagues of 
water. This is the greatest boast of art, as well as its 
most delightful victory. It annihilates space, if not time, 

and makes the absent happy. 

Barry Cornwall. 

STY L E. 

As pictures, so shall poems be ; some stand 

The critic's eye, and please when near at hand; 

But others at a distance strike the sight ; 

This seeks the shade, but that demands the light, 

Nor dreads the connoisseur's fastidious view. 

But, ten times scrutinized, is ten times new. 

Byron, 



22 



PERCEPTION OF BEAUTY. 

Perception of beauty is one of the most decided 
characteristics by which man is distinguished from the 
brute. We discover no symptoms of admiration in ani- 
mals of a kiwer grade than ourselves. The peacock 
excites no deference from the splendour of his plumage, 
nor the swan from her snow-white feathers ; and the 
verdant fields in their summer bloom attract no more 
than as their flowery sweets allure the insect tribe, who 
in their turn are followed by their foes. To man alone 
belongs the prerogative of appreciating beauty, because 
admiration is sTaciously designed as the means of leadinor 

him on to moral excellence. 

»S. Sticknei/. 

VENUS OF APELLES.* 

When first the Rhodian's mimic art arrayed 

The queen of Beauty in her Cyprian shade, 

The happy master mingled on his piece 

Each look that charmed him in the fair of Greece ; 

To faultless Nature true, he stole a grace 

From every finer form and sweeter face ; 

And, as he sojourned on the iEgean isles, 

Wooed all their love, and treasured all their smiles ; 

Then glowed the tints, pure, precious, and refined. 

And mortal charms seemed heavenly when combined ; 

Love on the pictm-e smiled ! Expression poured 

Her mingling spirit there — and Greece adored ! 

Campbell, 
* Born at Rhodes, Apelles was cherished by Alexander. 



23 



PAINTING-ROOM. 



At other times, I have sat and watched the 

decaying embers in a little back painting-room, (just as 
the wintry day declined,) and brooded over the half- 
finished copy of a Rembrandt, or a landscape by Van- 
goyen, placing it where it might catch a dim gleam of 
light from the fire, while the letter-bell was the only 
sound that drew my thoughts to the world without, and 
reminded me that I had a task to perform in it. As to 
that landscape, methinks I see it now 

" The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale, 
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail." 

There was a windmill, too, with a poor, low, clay-built 
cottage beside it : — how delighted I was when I had 
made the tremulous, undulating reflection in the water, 
and saw the dull canvass become a lucid mirror of the 
commonest features of nature ! Certainly, painting gives 
one a strong interest in nature and humanity. * * * 

" While with an eye made quiet by the power 
Of harmony and the deep power of joy, 
We see into the life of things." 

Perhaps there is no part of a painter's life (if we must 
tell the " secrets of the prison-house") in which he has 
more enjoyment of himself and his art, than that in 
which, after his work is over, and with furtive, sidelong 
glances at what he has done, he is employed in washing 
his brushes and cleaning his palette for the day. 

W. Hazlitt. 



24 



TRUTH. 



O ! WHO would face the blame of just men's eyes. 
And bear the fame of falsehood all his days, 

And wear out scorned life with useless lies, 

Which still the shifting, quivering look betrays. 

For what is hope, if truth be not its stay ? 

And what were love, if truth forsook it quite ? 
And what were all the sky, if falsehood gray. 
Behind it, like a dream of darkness, lay. 

Ready to quench its stars in endless, endless night? 

Anon, 

CURIOSITY. 

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain charac- 
teristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into 
knowledge opens new prospects, and produces new in- 
citements to further progress. All the attainments pos- 
sible in our present state are evidently inadequate to our 
capacities of enjoyments ; conquest serves no purpose 
but that of kindling ambition ; discovery has no effect 
but of raising expectation ; the gratification of one desire 
encourages another ; and after all our labours, studies, 
and inquiries, we are continually at the samie distance 
from the completion of our schemes, have still some 
wish importunate to be satisfied, and some faculty rest- 
less and turbulent for want of its enjoyment. * * * This 
passion is, perhaps, regularly heightened in proportion 
as the powers of the mind are elevated and enlarged. 
* * * There is, indeed, scarce any kind of ideal acquire- 



25 

ment which may not be applied to some use, or which 
may not at least gratify pride with occasional superiority. 
* * * Curiosity is the thirst of the soul ; it inflames 
and torments us, and makes us taste every thing with joy, 
however otherwise insipid, by which it may be quenched. 

Johnson, 



ALLOY OF BLISS. 

Who that would ask a heart to dulness wed, 
The waveless calm, the slumber of the dead ? 
No ; the wild bliss of nature needs alloy. 
And fear and sorrow fan the fire of joy ! 
And say, without our hopes, without our fears, 
Without the home that plighted love endears, 
Without the smile from partial beauty won, 
O ! what were man ? — a world without a sun. 

Campbell, 

MUTUAL DEPENDENCE. 

The apparent insufficiency of every individual to his 
own happiness or safety compels us to seek from one 
another assistance and support. The necessity of joint 
efforts for the execution of any great or extensive design, 
the variety of powers disseminated in the species, and. 
the proportion between the defects and excellencies of 
different persons, demand an interchange of help, and 
communication of intelligence, and by frequent reciproca- 
tions of beneficence unite mankind in society and friend- 
ship. 

Johnson. 



26 



MOUNTAIN BARD. 

On Caledonia's liills, the ruddy morn 

Breathes fresli : — the huntsman winds his chimorous horn. 

The youthful Minstrel from his pallet springs, 

Seizes his harp, and tunes its slumbering strings. 

With airy foot he treads that giddy height. 

His heart all rapture, and his eye all light ; 

His voice all melody, his yellow hair 

Floating and dancing on the mountain air. 

Shaking from its loose folds the liquid pearls, 

That gather clustering on his golden curls ; — 

And, for a moment, gazes on a scene, 

Tinged with deep shade, dim gold, and brightening green ; 

Tlien plays a mournful prelude, M'hile the star 

Of morning fades : — But when heaven's gates unbar, 

And on the world a tide of glory rushes. 

Burns on the liill, and down the valley blushes ; 

The mountain bard in livelier numbers sings. 

While sunbeams warm and gild the conscious strings, 

And his young bosom feels the enchantment strong, 

Of light, and joy, and minstrelsy, and song ! 

Pierponi. 

JUDGMENT IN COMPOSITION. 

It is only a great artist who knows when to be brief 

in descriptions, and when copious ; where to light up his 

landscape M'ith sunshine, and where to cover it with 

darkness and tempest. 

J. Beattie. 



27 



MUSIC AT MIDNIGHT. 

Hark ! how it floats upon the dewy air ! 

O ! what a dying, dying close was there ! 

'Tis harmony from yon sequestered bower, 

Sweet harmony, that soothes the midnight hour ! 

Long ere the charioteer of day had run 

His morning course, the enchantment was begun ; 

And he shall gild yon mountain's height again. 

Ere yet the pleasing toil becomes a pain. 

* * * • * * 

Love makes the music of the blest above, 

Heaven's harmony is universal love. 

Cowper. 



PLEASURE OF TRAVEL. 

The pleasure of travel is in the fancy. Men and 
manners are so nearly alike over the world, and the same 
annoyances disturb so certainly, wherever we are, the 
gratification of seeing and conversing with our living 
fellow-beings, that it is only by the mingled illusion of 
fancy and memory, by getting apart, and peopling the 
deserted palace or the sombre ruin from the pages of a 
book, that we ever realize the anticipated pleasure of 
standing on celebrated ground. The eye, the curiosity, 
are both disappointed, and the voice of a common com- 
panion reduces the most romantic ruin to a heap of 
stones. 

N. P. milts. 



28 



ANTIQUITIES. 



To confine our studies to mere antiquities is like read- 
ing by candle-light, with our shutters closed, after the 

sun has risen. 

T. Campbell. 



PAINTING. 

Thine are, O Mind ! the colours that delight 
The artist in his visionary mood ! — 
Thou art the inspiration and the might, 
The deep enchantment of his solitude : 

* * * * * 
Amid the grand — the wonderful^the wild- 
Forever have thy loftiest revelations smiled ! 

* -* * * * -^ 
Who may behold the works of Raphael's hand 
And feel no mountings of the soul within 1 

Find not his mould of intellect expand. 
And the creations of the pencil win 
His thoughts toward heaven, to which they are akin ; 
Ennobling his v/hole being — touching chords 
Of holiest sweetness — purifying sin- 
Raising a deatliless moral, that records 
The majesty of truth in tints surpassing words ! 

* * _-* -^ * * « 
'Tis not alone the poesy of form ; 

The melody of aspect, the fine hue 

Of lips half blushing, odorous, and warm; 

Of eyes like heaven's own paradise of blue ; 



29 

Nor all the graces that enchain the view, 

And render beauty still more beautiful — 

But the resemblance that can renew 

Past youth, past hopes, past loves, no shroud may dull — 

Affections, years may dim, but never quite annul : 

Wresting from death and darkness undecayed. 

The kindred lineaments we honoured here ; 

The breast on which our infant brow had laid ; 

The lips that kissed away our first brief tear. 

* -^ * * i^ * 

Then, ah ! for ever sacred be that art 
Which gave me all the grave had left of mine ! 
I gaze upon this portrait till my heart 
Remembers every touch, and every line ; 
And almost do I deem the gift divine. 
Direct from heaven, and not from human skill ! 
Instinct with love those noble features shine— 
The ej^es some new expression seems to fill — 
And half I know thee dead— half hope thee living still. 

C. Swain. 

ANTIQUITY. 

Antiquity is worthless, except as the parent of expe- 
rience. That which is useful is alone venerable ; that 
which is virtuous is alone noble ; and there is nothing so 
illustrious as the dedication of the intellect and the affec- 
tions to the great end of human improvement and happi- 
ness ; an end which will be the ultimate test and touch- 
stone of all our institutions, by a reference to which they 
will be judged, and either perpetuated or swept away. 

Westminster Review. 
3* 



30 



POET OF NATURE. 

Nature, exerting an unwearied power, 
Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower ; 
Spreads the fair verdure of the field, and leads 
The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads : 
She fills profuse ten thousand little throats 
With music, modulating all their notes ; 
And charms the woodland scenes, and wilds unknown, 
With artless airs and concerts of her own : 
But seldom, as if fearful of expense, 
Vouchsafes to man a poet's just pretence- 
Fervency, freedom, fluency of thought. 
Harmony, strength, words exquisitely sought ; 
Fancy, that from the bow that spans the sky. 
Brings colours, dipped in heaven, that never die ; 
A soul exalted above earth, a mind 
Skilled in the characters that form mankind ; 

* * * * * * 

Thus graced, the man asserts a poet's name, 
And the world cheerfully admits the claim. 

Coivper. 

PERSEVERANCE. 

All the performances of human art, at which we look 
with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless 
force of perseverance : it is by this that the quarry be- 
comes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united 
by canals. If a man was to compare the effect of a 
single stroke of the pick-axe, or of one impression of the 



31 

spade, with the general design and last result, he would 
be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion ; 
yet these petty operations, incessantly continued, in time 
surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are 
levelled, and oceans bounded, by the slender force of 
human beings. 



Johnson. 



SENSE OF BEAUTY. 



Mind, mind alone, (bear witness, earth and heaven !) 

The living fountain in itself contains 

Of beauteous and sublime : here hand in hand 

Sit paramount the Graces ; here enthroned. 

Celestial Venus, with divinest airs. 

Invites the soul to never-fading joy. 

Akenside. 



WOMEN AND PICTURES. 

If, indeed, women were mere outside, form and face 
only, and if mind made up no part of her composition, 
it would follow that a ball-room was quite as appropriate 
a place for choosing a wife, as an exhibition-room for 
choosing a picture. But, inasmuch as women are not 
mere portraits, their value not being determinable by a 
glance of the eye, it follows that a different mode of 
appreciating their value, and a different place for viewing 
them antecedent to their being individually selected, is 
desirable. The two cases differ also in this, that if a 
man select a picture for himself from among all its ex- 
hibited competitors, and bring it to his own house, the 
picture being passive, he is able to fix it there : while 



32 

the wife, picked up at a public place, and accustomed to 
incessant display, will not, it is probable, when brought 
home, stick so quietly to the spot where he fixes her, 
but will escape to the exhibition-room again, and con- 
tinue to be displayed at every subsequent exhibition, just 
as if she were not become private property, and had 

never been definitely disposed of. 

Hannah More. 



CHURCH OF THE CARMELITES.* 

In this chapel wrought 
One of the few. Nature's interpreters ; 
The few, whom genius gives as lights to shine, 
Massaccio ;t and he slumbers underneath. 
Wouldst thou behold his monument ? Look round ! 
And know that where we stand stood oft and long, 
Oft till the day was gone, Raphael himself, 
He and his haughty rivalj — patiently. 
Humbly to learn of those who came before, 
To steal a spark from their authentic fire ; 
Theirs who first broke the universal gloom, 
Sons of the morning. 

Rogers, 

NATURE AND ART. 

It is a great mortification to the vanity of man, that 

■ his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest 

of nature's productions, either for beauty or value. Art 

is only the under-workman, and is employed to give a 

* At Florence, f The first great painter of Italy. ^ Michael Angelo. 



33 

few strokes of embellishment to those pieces which come 
from the hand of the master. Some of which may be 
of his drawing, but he is not allowed to touch the princi- 
pal figure. Art may make a suit of clothes, but nature 

must produce a man. 

Hume. 



STUDY FROM NATURE. 

Who to the life an exact piece would make, 
Must not from others' work a copy take, 
No, not from Rubens or Vandyck, 
Much less content himself to make it like 
The ideas and the images which lie 
In his own fancy or his memory : 
No, he before his sight must place 
The natural and living face ; 
The real object must command 
Each judgment of his eye, and motion of his hand. 

Cowley. 

SUNSHINE AND CLOUD. 

It is with the moral as with the natural world. It is 
not amid the serenity of fortune, it is not in the unshaded 
light of noon, that the sublime of the one or the other is 
to be sought. Amid the mingled light and shadow 
which compose sunrise, the grandest combinations are 
formed ; from the sti'uggle of adverse or doubtful fortune, 
the loftiest morals are gathered. The doubt and the 
darkness, the shadow and the cloud, make the glory and 
the beauty ! The moral and the natural light, in their 



34 

essence and abstraction, are alike things too pure and 
bright and spiritual to be contemplated or understood by 
the eye of the body or the mind. It is only when they 
have some medium to act upon, some sorrow or diffi- 
culty to struggle with, some cloud to gild, that their 
glory and their beauty can be sensibly felt, and in part 
understood. Friendship's Offering. 

ACQUIREMENTS. 

Much knowleage of colour, much skill of hand, much 
experience in human character, and a deep sense of light 
and shade, have to be acquired, to enable the pencil to 
embody the conceptions of genius. The artist has to 
seek for all this in the accumulated mass of professional 
knowledge which time has gathered for his instruction ; 
and with his best wisdom, and his happiest fortune, he 
can only add a little more information to the common 
stock, for the benefit of his successors. 

A. Cunningham, 

STANDARD OF ART. 

First follow Nature ; and your judgment frame 
By her just standard, which is still the same ; 
Unerring nature, still divinely bright. 
One clear, unchanged, and universal light, 
Life, force, and beauty must to all impart, 
At once the source, and end, and test of art. 
Art from that fund each just supply provides ; 
Works without show, and without pomp presides. 

Pope, 



35 



GENIUS. 



The three primary requisites of genius, according to 
the AVelsh, are an eye that can see nature, a heart that 
can feel nature, and a boldness that dares follow nature. 

Anon. 

MOUNTAIN TOP. 

Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild 

Mingled in harmony on Nature's face. 

Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot 

Fail not with weariness, for on their tops 

The beauty and the majesty of earth, 

Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget 

The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'st, 

The haunts of men below thee, and around 

The mountain summits, thy expanding heart 

Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world 

To which thou art translated, and partake 

The enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt look 

Upon the green and rolling forest tops. 

And down into the secrets of the glens. 

And streams, that with their bordering thicket strive 

To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at once. 

Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds, 

And swarming roads, and there on solitude 

That only hear the torrent, and the wind, 

And eagle's shriek. 

W. C. Bryant. 



36 



ARTISTS. 



Adventurers in Art are seldom adventurers upon any 
other ground ;■ — if they travel, it is but to see. The 
organ of vision is to them the richest inheritance. A 
cultivated perception places within their reach objects of 
enjoyment from every quarter of the globe. The trea- 
sures of the land and of the deep, the ever-varying cha- 
racter of the seasons, and the phenomena of the elements, 
furnish the storehouse of the painter's imagination, from 
whence he draws those enchanting combinations of hill 
and dale, of mountain torrent, or of placid stream. But 
it is principally with the human form divine, and with 
the character and expressions of the mind under the 
various emotions of passions that swell the human heart, 
that he is most studiously concerned. It is with these 
elements of the soul that he must be conversant, in order 
to be able to cite them to appear at his bidding, and, by 
the magic of his pencil, to transfer them to the canvass. 
* * * The Artist resembles the philosopher in the 
singleness and abstraction of his pursuits, caring little for 
the chances and changes of things, if his colours do but 
flow with ease, and are not liable to fade or change. If 
he does not possess the splendours of life, the love of 
Art enables him to endure its privations. His hopes are 
fed, and his exertions animated by the reward of the 
judicious ; and if not secure of contemporary applause, 
he consoles himself with the hope that posterity will do 

justice to his merits. 

Library of the Fine Arts, 



37 



EYE OF TASTE. 



The Painter's eye, to sovereign beauty true, 
Marks every grace, and heightens every hue ; 
Follows the fair through all her forms and wiles. 
Studies her airs, and triumphs in her smiles ; 
Imagines wondrous scenes as fancy warms, 
And revels, rich in all creation's charms. 
His Art her homage, and his soul her shrine, 
She rules his life, and regulates his line ; 
While rapt to frenzy as the goddess fires, 
He pours to view the visions she inspires. 
Presented to the cultured eye of Taste, 
No rock is barren, and no wild is waste ; 
No shape uncouth or savage, but, in place, 
Excites an interest, or assumes a grace ; 
Whether the year's successive seasons roll. 
Or Proteus passion paint the varying soul ; 
Whether, apart considered, or combined. 
The forms of matter and the traits of mind ; 
Nature, exhaustless still, has power to warm. 
And every change of scene, a novel charm. 
The dome-crowned city, or the cottaged plain. 
The rough, cragged mountain, or tumultuous main ; 
The temple, rich in trophied pride arrayed. 
Or mouldering in the melancholy shade ; 
The spoils of tempest, or the wrecks of time ; 
The earth abundant, and the heaven sublime ;— 
All, to the Painter, purest joys impart. 
Delight his eye, and stimulate his Art. 

* * * * * i| 

4 



38 

Nature for him unfolds her fairest day, 

For him puts on her picturesque array ; 

Beneath his eye new brightens all her charms, 

And yields her blushing beauties to his arms, 

His prize and praise — pursued in shades or crowds ; 

He fancies prodigies and peoples clouds ; 

Arrests in rapid glance each fleeting form. 

Loves the mild calm, and studies in the storm. 

M. A. Shee, 



PORTRAIT PAINTING. 

A VERY charming art — a right noble art, when nobly 
and worthily used, redeeming as it does, grace and 
beauty from the grasp of time and the mortality of the 
grave, and transmitting the lineaments of the good, the 
great, and the gifted, to the anxious and inquiring gaze 
of unborn generations. When we lay down the volume 
of a glorious poet, or study the works of a great artist, 
or read the sayings and doings of heroes, sages, naviga- 
tors, statesmen, and all who, by deed or word, have 
raised themselves above the mediocrity of humanity, the 
dead level of commonplace, we naturally feel a portion 
of Lady Rosalind's curiosity — we wish to know "what 
manner of men they were" — we wish to look upon the 
grand and expansive foreheads — the deep mysterious 
eyes— the expressive mouths^in finie, we want reveren- 
tially to gaze upon the exteriors of intellect. 

■^ * * vif * * 

Portrait painting has one peculiar virtue. It has a 
stronger claim upon the affections than the noblest 
branches of art ; its dull, literal, matter-of-fact transcripts 



39 

are more dear to those with whom the fate of the original 
are linked, than the brightest and loveliest beauties of 
ideal beauty. Through its medium, friends and lovers 
gaze into each other's faces at the outermost ends of the 
earth. It preserves to you, unchanged by death or 
decay, or the mutations of the world, the frank, free 
countenance of the companion of your boyhood, or the 
form and features that " first love traced ;" through it the 
mother gazeth with mournful tenderness on the similitude 
of her absent or departed child ; and children with grate- 
ful recollection on the presentment of those who were 
the first and last to love them. And, no matter how 
commonplace or generally uninteresting the countenances 
of those persons who have been so preserved — they 
were dear to some one. The beneficent law of nature 
sayeth, that no human being shall go utterly unbeloved ; 
it has insured sympathy and afiection to all ; a nook in 
some heart to the most despised — 

" There is a tear for all that die, 
A mourner o'er the humblest bier." 

Therefore, as an art that yields to the eye that for which 

the soul yearns, Portrait painting is worthy of all love 

and honour. 

William Cox. 



MARY'S PORTRAIT. 

This faint resemblance of thy charms, 
Though strong as mortal art could give, 

My constant heart of fear disarms. 
Revives my hopes, and bids me live. 



40 

Here I can trace the locks of gold 

Which round thy snowy forehead wave, 

The cheeks which sprung from Beauty's mould, 
The lips which made me Beauty's slave. 

Here I can trace — ah no ! that eye 

Whose azure floats in liquid fire, 
Must all the painter's art defy, 

And bid him from the task retire. 

* * * * * 

Sweet copy ! far more dear to me. 

Lifeless, unfeeling as thou art, 
Than all the living forms could be. 

Save her who placed thee next my heart. 

Byron. 



PROGRESS OF INTELLECT. 

When the treasures of knowledge are first opened 
before us, while novelty blooms alike on every hand, 
and every thing equally unknown and unexamined seems 
of equal value, the power of the soul is principally ex- 
erted in a vivacious and desultory curiosity. « * * 
When a number of distinct images are collected by these 
erratic and hasty surveys, the fancy is busied in arrang- 
ing them ; and combines them into pleasing pictures 
with more resemblance to the realities of life as expe- 
rience advances, and new observations rectify the former. 
While the judgment is yet uninformed, and unable to 
compare the draughts of fiction with their originals, we 
are delighted with improbable adventures, impracticable 
virtues, and inimitable characters. But, in proportion as 



41 

we have more opportunities of acquainting ourselves 
with living nature, we are soon disgusted with copies in 
which there appears no resemblance. We first discard 
absurdity and impossibility, then exact greater and greater 
degrees of probability, but at last become cold and in- 
sensible to the charms of falsehood, however specious, 
and from the imitations of truth, which are never perfect, 

transfer our affections to truth itself. 

Johnson, 



POETRY OF PARADISE. 

In Eden, ere yet innocence of heart 
Had faded, poetry was not an art ; 
Language, above all teaching, or, if taught. 
Only by gratitude and glowing thought ; 
Elegant as simplicity, and warm 
As ectasy, unmanacled by form ; 
Not prompted, as in our degenerate days. 
By low ambition and a thirst of praise ; 
Was natural as is the flowing stream, 
And yet magnificent — a God the theme ! 

Cowper. 

CALPURNIA.* 

From attachment to me she has acquired a love of 
study. My books she carries with her, reads, learns by 
heart. What solicitude she testifies when I am about to 
plead in a cause, what joy when I have done ! She has 
messengers disposed to tell her what assent, what ap- 

* The wife of Pliny. 

4* 



42 

plaiise I receive ; and what is the event of the trial. 
She sings my verses to her lyre with no other art but 
love, the best of masters. Wherefore I entertain a con- 
fident hope that our mutual attachment will be perpetual, 
and will grow stronger and stronger with time. For it 
is not my youth or my person, which fail with age, but 

my fame, Avhich she loves. 

Pliny. 

INFANT BEAUTY. 

Bright be the skies that cover thee, 

Child of the sunny brow — 
Bright as the dream flung over thee 

By all that meets thee now. 
Thy heart is beating joyously, 

Thy voice is like a bird's, 
And sweetly breaks the melody 

Of thy imperfect words. 
I know no fount that gushes out 
So gladly as thy tiny shout. 

I would that thou mightst ever be 

As beautiful as now, — 
That time might ever leave as free 

Thy yet unwritten brow, — 
I would life were " all poetry," 

To gentle measure set ; 
That naught but chastened melody 

Might stain thine eye of jet, 
Nor one discordant note be spoken, 
Till God the cunning harp hath broken. 

N. P. WiUis. 



43 



WOMEN. 



What can interrupt the content of those, upon whom 
one age has laboured after another to confer honours, and 
accumulate immunities ; those to whom rudeness is in- 
famy, and insult is cowardice ; whose eye commands 
the brave, and whose smiles soften the severe ; whom 
the sailor travels to adorn, the soldier bleeds to defend, 
and the poet wears out life to celebrate ; who claim 
tribute from every art and science, and for whom all who 
approach them endeavour to multiply delights, without 
requiring from them any return but willingness to be 

pleased ? 

Johnson. 



FILIAL MEMORY. 

My mother ! weary years have passed, since last 
I met thy gentle smiles ; and sadly then 
It fell upon my young and joyous heart. 
There was a mortal paleness on thy cheek, 
And well I knew they bore thee far away 
With a vain hope to mend the broken springs — 
The springs of life. And bitter tears I shed 
In childhood's short-lived agony of grief, 
When soothing voices snid that thou wert gone. 
And that I must not weep, for thou wert blest. 
Full many a flower has bloomed upon thy grave. 
And many a winter's snow has melted there ; 
Childhood has passed, and youth is passing now, 
And scatters paler roses on my path ; 



44 

Dim and more dim, my fancy paints thy form, 
Thy mild blue eye, thy cheek so thin and fair, 
Touched, when I saw thee last, with hectic flush, 
Telling in solemn beauty of the grave. 
Mine ear hath lost the accents of thy voice. 
And faintly o'er my memory comes at times 
A glimpse of joys that had their source in thee, 
Like one brief strain of some forgotten song ! 

Anon. 



FICTIONS OF ART. 

Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, 

And fevers into false creation : — where. 
Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized ? 

In him alone. Can Nature show so fair? 
Where are the charms and virtues which we dare 

Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, 
The unreached Paradise of our despair, 

Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, 
And overpowers the page where it would bloom again ? 

Byron. 

YOUTH. 

It is on the verge of womanhood that we see the 
female character in its greatest variety and beauty ; while 
the rich colouring of fresh-born fancy, the warm gush of 
genuine feeling, and the high aspirations of ambitious 
youth, are yet unsubdued by the tyranny of custom, or 
forced back into the bursting heart by the cold hand of 
experience. Woman, fresh as it were from the garden 



45 

of Eden, while the loveliness of her first creation is still 
lingering around her, * * * in her character and attri- 
butes, her beauty, her tenderness, and her liability to 
danger and suffering, is all that the poet can desire to 

inspire his happiest lays. 

S. Stickney. 



DREAMS. 

Sleep hath its own world, 
And a wide realm of wild reality. 
And dreams in their developement have breath, 
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy ; 
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, 
They take a weight from off our waking toils, 
They do divide our being ; they become 
A portion of ourselves, as of our time, 
And look like heralds of eternity ; 
They pass like spirits of the past, — ^they speak 
Like sybils of the future ; they have power— 
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain ; 
They make us >vhat we were not — what they will, 
And shake us with the vision that's gone by, 
The dread of vanished shadows. * * 

* * * The mind can make 
Substance, and people planets of its own 
With beings brighter than have been, and give 
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. 

* * * * A thought, 
A slumbering thought, is capable of years. 
And curdles a long life into one hour. 

Byron. 



46 



IMAGINATION. 



The effects of foreign travel have been often remarked, 
not only in rousing the curiosity of the traveller while 
abroad, but in correcting, after his return, whatever 
habits of inattention he had contracted to the institutions 
and manners among which he was bred. It is in a way 
somewhat analogous that our occasional excursions into 
the regions of imagination increase our interest in those 
familiar realities, from which the stores of imagination 
are borrowed. We learn insensibly to view nature with 
the eye of the painter and the poet, and to seize those 
"happy attitudes of things" which their taste at first 
selected ; while, enriched with the accumulation of ages, 
and with *' the spoils of time," we unconsciously com- 
bine with what we see, all that we know and all that we 
feel ; and sublime the organical beauties of the material 
world, by blending with them the inexhaustible delights 

of the heart and of the fancy. 

Dugald Stewart. 



SOCIETY. 

There is a certain delicacy of mind which is not in- 
compatible with the highest ambition ; but when that 
ambition receives a check in its early beginning, when 
that delicacy is hurt by some unexpected and sore mis- 
fortune, a person of such a character is apt to quarrel 
with the world, and to seek for happiness without its 
range. * * * Men were born to live in society; and 
from society only can happiness be derived. Let them 



47 

not, therefore, in a moment of disgust, give up the ordi- 
nary cares and projects of the world, and indulge in ideas 
of that visionary bliss which exists only in romantic 
pictures and delusive representations of solitude and re- 
tirement. Let not one disappointment, nor even a series 
of disappointments, induce them to abandon the common 
road of life.*— 'Tis only a pettish child, when it is crossed, 
that is entitled to spurn from it its toy of happiness. 

The Lounger. 

CHARM OF DISTANCE. 

At summer eve, when heaven's aerial bow 
Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below, 
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye. 
Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky ? 
Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear 
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near 1 
'Tis Distance lends enchantment to the view, 

And robes the mountain in its azure hue. 

Campbell. 

INDUSTRY AND LUXURY. 

Every thing in the world is purchased by labour ; and 
our passions are the only causes of labour. When a 
nation abounds in manufactures and mechanic arts, the 
proprietors of land, as well as farmers, study agriculture 
as a science, and redouble their industry and attention. 
The superfluity which arises from their labours is not 
lost ; but is exchanged with manufacturers for those com- 
modities which men's luxury now makes them covet. 



48 

By this means, land furnishes a great deal more of the 
necessaries of life than what suffices for those who culti- 
vate it. In times of peace and tranquillity, this super- 
fluity goes to the maintenance of manufacturers and the 

improvers of liberal arts. 

Hume. 



RAINBOW. 

The evening was glorious, and light through the trees 
Played the sunshine and raindrops, the birds and the 

breeze. 
The landscape, outstretching in loveliness, lay 
On the lap of the year, in the beauty of May. 

* * * * * « 
The skies, like a banner in sunset unrolled, 

O'er the west threw their splendour of azure and gold, 
But one cloud at a distance rose dense, and increased. 
Till its margin of black touched the zenith and east. 
We gazed on the scenes, while around us they glowed, 
When a vision of beauty appeared on the cloud ;— 

* * * * * * 
In the hues of its grandeur, sublimely it stood, 
O'er the river, the village, the field, and the wood ; 

« * ■;•? * * * 

'Twas the bow of Omnipotence ; * * 

* « that beautiful one ! 

Whose arch was refraction, its key-stone — the Sun ; 

* * * * -;•? * 

Awhile, and it sweetly bent over the gloom. 

Like Love o'er a death-couch, or Hope o'er the tomb ; 

* -^ * ^ * vif 



49 

'Tis a picture in memory, distinctly defined 
With the strong and unperishing colours of mind : 
A part of my being beyond my control, 
Beheld on that cloud, and transcribed on my soul. 

Campbell. 

WIFE AND MOTHER. 

As a mother we behold woman in her holiest character 
— as the nurse of innocence — as the cherisher of the first 
principles of mind — as the guardian of an immortal being, 
who will write upon the records of eternity how faith- 
fully she has fulfilled her trust. * « * In assuming this 
new and important ofiice, she does not necessarily lose 
any of the charms which have beautified her character 
before. She can still be tender, lovely, delicate, refined, 
and cheerful, as when a girl ; devoted to the happiness of 
those around her; affectionate, judicious, dignified, and 
intellectual, as when a wife only; while this new love, 
deep as the \ery wells of life, mingles with the current 
of her thoughts and feelings, giving warmth and intensity 
to all, without impairing the force or the purity of any. 

<S. Stickney. 

POETIC PICTURES. 

The colours, nay even the forms in poetry, as in the 

kaleidoscope, already exist; accident here, and genius 

there, put them in new positions, and thus create new 

pictures. 

W. Alexis. 



50 



SPIRIT OF PAINTING. 

One bright sunshiny autumn day, 

When the leaves were just beginning to fade, 

I saw a gay and laughing maid 
Stand by the side of a public way- 
There she stood erect and tall ; 

Her flowery cheek had caught the dyes 

Of the earliest dawn — and ! her eyes, 

Not a star that shoots or flies, 
But those dark eyes outshone them all. 
She stood with a long and slender wand. 

With a tassel of hair at its pointed tip ; 

And fast as the dews from a forest drip, 
When a summer shower has bathed the land, 

So quick a thousand colours came, 

Darting along like shapes of flame. 
At every turn of her gliding hand. 
She gave a form to the bodiless air. 

And clear as a mirrored sheet it lay ; 

And phantoms would come and pass away. 

As her magical rod was pointed there. 

Bryant, 



APPLAUSE. 

To please is a laudable and elegant ambition, and is 
properly rewarded with honest praise ; but to seize ap- 
plause by violence, and call out for commendation, with- 
out knowing, or caring to know, whether it be given 
from conviction, is a species of tyranny by which modesty 



51 



is oppressed, and sincerity corrupted. The tribute of 
admiration, thus exacted by impudence and importunity, 
differs from the respect paid to silent merit, as the plun- 
der of a pirate from the merchant's profit. 



Johnson, 



MUSIC. 

Music, in her sovereign power, 
Measured by a master hand. 
Fills with joy the lover's bower. 

Animates the patriot band- 
Music, voice of nature ! still 
Lead me captive to thy will. 

Inspiration of the soul ! 

Spirit of the painter's art ! 
Eloquence whose strains control 

Boundless mind or bursting heart, — 
Music, voice of nature ! still 
Lead me captive to thy will. 



R.P. 



SCOTT'S PENCIL. 

I DO not by any means infer that I was dead to the 
feelings of picturesque scenery; on the contrary, few 
delighted more in its general effect. But I was unable 
with the eye of a painter to dissect the various parts of 
the scene, to comprehend how the one bore upon the 
other, to estimate the effect which various features of the 
view had in producing its leading and general effect. I 



52 

have never, indeed, been capable of doing this with pre- 
cision or nicety, though my latter studies have led me to 
amend and arrange my original ideas upon the subject. 
Even the humble ambition which I long cheri&hed, of 
making sketches of those places which interested me, 
from a defect of eye or of hand, was totally ineffectual. 
After long study and many efforts, I was unable to apply 
the elements of perspective or of shade to the scene before 
me, and was obliged to relinquish in despair an art which 
I was most anxious to practise. But show me an old 
castle or a field of battle, and I was at home at once, 
filled it with its combatants, in their proper costume, and 
overwhelmed my hearers by the enthusiasm of my de- 
scription. Scott. 

THE SKETCHER. 

Yes, sketch the landscape, fix each glowing hue, 
Give earth's gay verdure and the sky's bright blue ; 
Let the fair scene upon thy paper live, 
W ith all the truth thy graceful hand can give ; 
For soon will winter come, with boisterous breeze, 
Sweeping their leafy honours from the trees, 
And sullen clouds impel the driving storm 
The beauties of the landscape to deform. 
Then all that now is smiling bright and fair 
The sombre garb of winter drear will wear ; 
Then wilt thou joy thy graphic work to view. 
Which brings thee back each graceful form and hue, 
As bright and gay as when thy pencil sought 
To fix the brilliant tints by Nature taught. 

Blessington. 



53 



MUSIC. 



With music it was even worse than with painting. 
My mother was anxious we should at least learn psal- 
mody ; but the incurable defects of my voice and ear soon 
drove my teacher to despair. It is only by long practice 
that I have acquired the power of selecting or distinguish- 
ing melodies ; and although now few things delight or 
affect me more than a simple tune sung with feeling, yet 
I am sensible that even this pitch of musical taste has 
only been gained by attention and habit and, as it were, 
by my feeling of the words being associated with the tune. 

Scotf. 

GREEK STATUES. 

Gone are the glorious Greeks of old. 

Glorious in mien and mind ; 
Their bones are mingled with the mould, 

Their dust is on the wind ; 
The forms they hewed from living stone 
Survive the waste of years, alone, 
And scattered with their ashes, show 
What greatness perished long ago. 

W. C. Bri/ant. 

TASTE AND ART. 

All men are in some degree impressed by the face of 
the world ; some men even to delight. This love of 
beauty is taste. Others have the same love in such 
excess, that, not content with admiring, they seek to em- 

5* 



54 

body it in new forms. The creation of beauty is Art. 
* * * The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musician, 
the architect seek each to concentrate the radiance of the 
world on one point, and each, in his several work, to 
satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to pro- 
duce. Thus is Art a nature passed through the alembic 
of man. Thus in Art does nature work through the will 
of a man filled with the beauty of her first works. 

W. Emerson. 



DAUGHTERS OF EVE. 

Y.' ,re. stars of the night, ye are gems of the morn, 

1 re dewdrops, whose lustre illumines the thorn ; 

} . rayless that night is, that morning unblest, 

"^ , nen no beam in your eye lights up peace in the breast ; 

And the sharp thorn of sorrow sinks deep in the heart, 

Till the sweet lip of woman assuages the smart ; 

'Tis hers o'er the couch of misfortune to bend. 

In fondness a lover, in firmness a friend ; 

And prosperity's hour, be it ever confessed, 

From woman receives both refinement and zest ; 

And, adorned by the bays, or enwreathed with the willow, 

Her smile is our meed, and her bosom our pillow. 

Anon, 



SOLITUDE. 

To those who pass their time in solitude and retire- 
ment, it has been justly objected, that if they are happy, 
they are happy only by being useless ; that mankind is 
one vast republic, where every individual receives many 



55 

benefits from the labour of others, which, by labouring 
in his turn for others, he is obliged to repay ; and that 
where the united efforts of all are able to exempt all from 
misery, none have a right to withdraw from their task 
of vigilance, or be indulged in idle wisdom or solitary 
pleasures. Johnson. 

CONDITION OF WOMAN. 

Whether the story of the Amazons be authentic his- 
tory or only a cunningly devised fable, it presents, at all 
events, a poor picture of what society would become, if 
our councils were filled and our armies manned ^^'ith 
women, and they, rather than men, or equally wii' n, 
discharged the external and political dutoes of soci ; 
doing so at the sacrifice of all that delicacy and matCi 1 
tenderness, which are among the most appropriate ah J 
the highest charms of Woman. Hers be the domain of 
the moral affections, the empire of the heart, the co-ec[ual 
sovereignty of intellect, taste, and social refinement; 
leave the rude commerce of camps and the soul-hardening 
struggles of political power to the harsher spirit of man, 
that he may still look up to her as a purer and brighter 
being, an emanation of some better world, irradiating, like 
a rainbow of hope, the stormy elements of life. 

North American Review. 

TO SCULPTURE. 

Thanks to thee, child of Genius, thou didst touch 

The buried feelings of an ice-cold heart, 

And at thy magic touch they lived and glowed. 



56 

Thanks to thy parent, too ! at her command, 
Grace, symmetry, and beauty, sisters three. 
Sprung from a shapeless, rude, unsightly mass, 
To centre all in thee, thou favoured child. 
Thou art not marble ! sure that bosom heaves 
With this mysterious thing called life. These veins — 
Mark how they swell ; can that be mockery? 
The eye dilates, the varied passions flit ; 
Hope smiles, but soon hope flies before despair- 
Once more they struggle for the mastery ; 
The Angel triumphs and the Demon falls. 
Sublimity of mind ! what matchless skill ! 
Conception how divine ! thus to portray 
The moral grandeur of a noble soul. 

L.S, 

FLOWERS. 

Of all the minor creations of God, flowers seem to be 
most completely the eflusions of his love of beauty, grace, 
and joy. Of all the minor objects which surround us, 
they are the least connected with our absolute necessities. 
Vegetation might proceed, the earth might be clothed 
with a sober green ; all the processes of fructification 
might be perfected without being attended by the glory 
with which the flower is crowned ; but beauty and fra- 
grance are poured over the earth in blossoms of endless 
varieties, radiant evidences of the boundless benevolence 
of the Deity. They are made solely to gladden the heart 
of man, for a light to his eyes, for a living inspiration of 
grace to his spirit, for a perpetual admiration. * * * 

The Greeks, whose souls pre-eminently sympathized 



57 

with the spirit of grace and beauty in every thing, were 
enthusiastic in their love, and lavish in their use of 
flowers. They scattered them in the porticoes of their 
temples— they were offered on the altars of some of their 
deities — they were strewed in their conqueror's path — 
on all occasions of festivity and rejoicing they were 
strewn about, or worn in garlands. The guests at ban-, 
quets were crowned with them — the bowl was wreathed 
with them ; and wherever they wished to throw beauty, 
and to express gladness, like sunshine, they cast flowers. 

W. Howitt. 



To garland young brows with a splendour 

That nothing but roses can give, 
Or still on young bosoms in tender 

And beautiful slumber to live — 
By the azure of morn, and the crimson of even, 

For the lip they have smiles, for the fair cheek a bloom- 
"With the sunshine and roses this world is a heaven, 

Without them, it were but a desert and tomb. 

Anon. 

A FAIR ITALIAN. 

Her full dark curls 
Were clustered on a brow of ivory. 
And fell in lavish wealth, shading a neck 
Clear as an alabaster shrine, concealing 
A ruby, that with soft suffusion fills it. 
As with a loving glow. Her face was kindled 
By the quick glances of her large black eyes. 
That flashed from underneath her arching brows, 



58 

Like gems in caves ; and yet there was a softness 

At times, when shades of thought stole over her— 

But in the happy consciousness of beauty 

Her heart was all so joyous, that her smiles 

Gave a perpetual sunlight to that face, 

So beautiful, to see it was to love. 

I could not choose but watch with earnest gaze 

One of so perfect form and finished grace, 

That those who moved around her were but foils 

Heightening the one sole diamond. When I look 

On one so fair, I must believe that Heaven 

Sent her in kindness, that our hearts might waken 

To its own loveliness, and lift themselves 

By such an adoration from a dark 

And grovelling world. Such beauty should be worshipped, 

And not a thought of weakness or decay 

Should mingle with the pure and hallowed dreams, 

In which it dwells before us. It should live 

Eternal ; or, if it must pass away. 

And lose one tint of its now perfect brightness. 

Let it be hidden from me, for the sense. 

That all this glow must fade, falls on my heart 

Like the cold weight of death. 

Percival. 



PURPOSE OF PAINTING. 

To please is the genuine aim of painting, as of all the 
fine arts ; when pleasure is conveyed through deeply 
excited interest, by afi'ecting the passions, the senses, 
and the imagination, painting assumes a higher character, 
and almost vies with tragedy ; in fact, it is tragedy to the 



59 

eye, and is amenable to the same laws. The St. Sebas- 
tians of Guido and Razzi ; the St. Jerome of Domeni- 
chino ; the sternly beautiful Judith of Allori ; the Pieta 
of Raphael ; the San Pietro Martire of Titian ; are all so 
many tragic scenes, wherein whatever is revolting in 
circumstances or character is judiciously kept from view, 
where human suffering is dignified by the moral lesson 
it is made to convey, and its effect on the beholder at 
once softened and heightened by the redeeming grace 
which genius and poetry have shed like a glory round it. 

Mrs. Jameson. 

EVE. 

She who brought death into the world, 

There stood before him, with the light 

Of their lost Paradise, still bright 
Upon those sunny locks, that curled 
Down her white shoulders to her feet — • 
So beautiful in form, so sweet 
In heart and voice, as to redeem 

The loss, the death of all things dear, 
Except herself — and make it seem 

Life, endless life, while she was near ! 

Moore. 



MENTAL PICTURESQUE. 

It is not alone tlie visible picturesque of Italy which 
thus intoxicates ; it is not only her fervid skies, her sun- 
sets which envelope one-half of heaven, from the horizon 
to the zenith, in living blaze ; nor her soaring pine-clad 



60 

mountains ; nor her azure seas ; nor her fields " ploughed 
by the sunbeams ;" nor her gorgeous cities spread out 
with all their domes and towers unobscured by cloud or 
vapour ; — but it is something more than these, something 
beyond, and over all — 

The gleam, 
The light that never was on sea or land, 
The concentration, and the poet's dream ! 

Mrs. Jameson. 

HARMONY. 

As sounds of sweetest music, heard at eve, 
When summer dews weep over languid flowers ; 
When the still air conveys each touch, each tone, 
However faint — and breathes it on the ear 
With a distinct and thrilling power, that leaves 
Its memory long within the raptured soul, — 
E'en such thou art to me ! — and thus I sit 
And feel the harmony that round thee lives. 
And breathes from every feature. Thus I sit — 
And when most quiet, cold, or silent, then, 
E'en then, I feel each word, each look, each tone ! 
There's not an accent of that tender voice, 
There's not a daybeam of those sunbright eyes, 
Nor passing smile, nor melancholy grace. 
Nor thought half uttered, feeling half betrayed, 
Nor glance of kindness, — no, nor gentlest touch 
Of that dear hand, in amity extended, 
That e'er was lost to me ; — that treasured well. 
And oft recalled, dwells not upon my soul 
Like sweetest music heard at summer's eve ! 

Mrs. ^.':: s^ll. 



61 



SHAKSPEARE. 



Under the wizard influence of Shakspeare I had 
been walking all day in a complete delusion. I had 
surveyed the landscape through the prism of poetry, 
which tinged every object with the hues of the rainbow. 
I had been surrounded with fancied beings ; with mere 
airy nothings, conjured up by poetic power ; yet which 
to me had all the charm of reality. ^^ * * 

Ten thousand honours and blessings on the bard who 
has thus gilded the dull realities of life with innocent 
illusions ; who has spread exquisite and unbought plea- 
sures in my checkered path ; and beguiled my spirit in 
many a lonely hour, with all the cordial and cheerful 

sympathies of social life. 

W. Irving. 



MEMORY IN ART. 

When in Parian stone we trace 
Some best remembered form or face ; 
Or see on radiant canvass rise 
An imitative Paradise ; 
And feel the warm affections glow, 
Pleased at the pencil's mimic show ; 
'Tis but obedience to the plan 
From nature's birth proposed to man ; 
Who, lest her choicest sweets in vain 
Should blossom for our thankless train ; 
Lest beauty pass unheeded by 
Like cloud upon the summer sky ; 
6 



62 

Lest memory of the brave and just 
Should sleep with them consigned to dust, 
With leading hand the expedient proves, 
And paints for us the form she loves. 

Robert Snow. 

PORTRAIT PAINTING. 

There is no study which requires a longer period of 
application, unproductive in a pecuniary view, than that 
of painting ; and there are, perhaps, no students worse 
prepared to encounter such a course than those who 
usually undertake it. The young votary of taste has 
commonly more genius than money ; hence he is obliged 
to pursue the trade, before he has had time to acquire 
the art of painting, and to commence business without 
capital or credit. * * * The practice of portrait painting 
however, though it tends to divert our artists from the 
nobler pursuit of history, is not unproductive of advan- 
tage. If it is unfavourable to purity of design, it is the 
best school of colouring. The continual intercourse 
with nature, which it occasions, produces a power and 
truth of imitation, a richness, vigour, and variety of 
execution, which are rarely attained by any other means. 
What the portrait painter can do, he generally does better 
than any other artist. The necessity of giving interest 
to a single figure compels him to a punctilious accuracy, 
and refinement of effect, seldom displayed in larger com- 
positions. He supplies by his execution the defect of 
his materials ; and often invests vulgarity and deformity 
with a charm, which makes us forget the imperfections 
of the subject in the art with which it is represented. 

M. A. Shee. 



63 



POWER OF GRACE. 



In joyous youth, what soul hath never known 
Thought, feeling, taste, harmonious to its own ? 
Who hath not paused, while Beauty's pensive eye 
Asked from his heart the homage of a sigh ? 
Who hath not owned, with rapture smitten frame, 
The power of grace, the magic of a name ? 

Campbell. 



MATERIALS. 

It is not with pigments, oils, and varnishes alone that 
a picture is wrought. Reynolds, Titian, Rembrandt, and 
Wilson, mixed their colours with genius ; and painted, 
not only with their brushes, but with mind. 

Library of the Fine Arts. 



THE GOOD AND FAIR. 

Awake, arise ! with grateful fervour fraught, 

Go, spring the mine of elevated thought. 

He who, through Nature's various walk, surveys 

The good and fair her faultless line portrays ; 

Whose mind, profaned by no unhallowed guest. 

Culls from the crowd the purest and the best ; 

May range, at will, bright Fancy's golden clime. 

Or, musing, mount where science sits sublime, 

Or wake the spirit of departed time. 

Who acts thus wisely, mark the moral muse, 

A blooming Eden in his life reviews ! 

Rogers* 



64 



HORIZON OF LIFE. 

The quality of looking forward into futurity seems 
the unavoidable condition of a being, whose motions are 
gradual, and whose life is progressive : as his powers are 
limited, he must use means for the attainment of his ends, 
and intend first what he performs last ; as by continual 
advances from his first stage of existence, he is perpe- 
tually varying the horizon of his prospects, he must 
always discover new motives of action, new excitements 
of fear, and allurements of desire. Johnson. 

TRUE FICTION. 

A LIKENESS of some human face — 
The dwelling of a soul — a temple, where 
Imagination, Reason, Passion, dwell 
Together in delightful harmony : 
I love such pictures, for they bear me back 
To distant ages ; they transport my mind 
Across the deserts of the trackless seas. 
Methinks when I behold the panel glowing 
With an honest face, I gain another friend. 

Paint me a woman — Painter, do thy best, — 
A woman ! — Paint her like a full-blown flower, 
Radiant as summer — conscious, as she sits. 
That eyes are on her, feeding on her looks. 
Like bees on roses ! * ^^ * 

* * Let her smile ; 

For smiles are beautiful on every face : 



65 

And bind her forehead with her natural hair : 
And bid her lean thus — gently as she sits. 

* * * * ■«• -1^ 

* * What glittering dreams, 
What sunset summer hues, what witching power 
Belongs to thee, bright art ! C^st thou bring back 
The far-off friend, redeem for us the dead 

From utter darkness and oblivion's curse — 
And shall we fail to do thee homage 

■^ * * * * - -Hi 

Yes, hail to art ! that hath her pencil steeped 
In the bright fount of Nature, and hath drawn 
From the rich rainbow, and the early dawn ; 
From gems ; * * * ^ ^ 

From all that doth delight us, or doth dress 
Our world with lustre or with loveliness, — 

Some tributary tint# some natural hue. 
To blend into her woof of dazzling dreams, 
And make what to the sense fictitious seems, 

To the deep spirit marvellously true. 

Amukt. 



CHAMBER OF DISEASE. 

He that desires to enter behind the scene, which every 
heart ha^een employed to decorate, and every passion 
labours to illuminate, and wishes to see life stripped of 
those ornaments which make it glitter on the stage, and 
exposed in its natural meanness, impotence, and naked- 
ness, — may find all the delusion laid open in the chamber 
of disease : he will there find vanity divested of her 
robes, power deprived of her sceptre, and hypocrisy 

6* 



66 

■^ without her mask. * * * It is now past ; we have closed 
/ his eyes, and heard him breathe the groan of expiration. 
At the sight of this last conflict, I felt a sensation never 
5 known to me before ; a confusion of passions, an awful 
stillness of sorrow, a gloomy terror without a name. The 
thoughts that entered my soul were too strong to be di- 
verted, and too piercing to be endured ; but such violence 
cannot be lasting — the storm subsided in a short time ; I 
wept, retired, and grew calm. * * * When a friend is 
carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for every 
weakness, and palliations of every fault ; we recollect a 
thousand endearments which before glided off our minds 
without impression, a thousand favours unrepaid, a thou- 
sand duties unperformed ; and wish, vainly wish, for his 
return, not so much that we may receive, as that we may 
bestow happiness, and recompense that kindness which 
before we never understood.^ * * Let us therefore 
make haste to do what we shall certainly at last wish to 
have done ; let us return the caresses of our friends, and 
endeavour by mutual endearments to heighten that ten- 
derness which is the balm of life. Let us be quick to 
repent of injuries while repentance may not be a barren 
anguish ; and let us open our eyes to every rival excel- 
lence, and pay early and willingly those honours which 

justice will compel us to pay at last. 

nhnson. 



POETRY — MUSIC — SENSE. 

To please me, a poem must be either music or sense ; 
if it is neither, I confess I cannot interest myself in it. 

8. T. Coleridge. 



67 



REMINISCENCE. 

I've pleasant thoughts that memory brings, 

In moments free from care, 
Of a fairy-like and laughing girl. 

With roses in her hair ; 
Her smile was like the star-light 

Of summer's softest skies. 
And words of joyousness there shone 

From out her witching eyes. 

Her looks were looks of melody ; 

Her voice was like the swell 
Of sudden music, notes of mirth, 

That of wild gladness tell ; 
She came, like spring, with pleasant sounds 

Of sweetness and of mirth, 

And her thoughts were those wild flowery ones 

That linger not on earth. 

Mrs. L. P. Smith. 



MORNING HAZE. 

Lo, the sun floats up the sky 

Like thought- winged liberty, 

Till the universal light 

Seems to level plain and height j 

From the sea a mist has spread. 

And the beams of morn lie dead 

On the towers of Venice now, 

Like its glory long ago* 

Shelley. 



68 



TEARS AND BLUSHES. 

So bright the tear m beauty's eye, 
Love half regrets to kiss it dry ; 
So sweet the blush of bashfulness, 
Even pity scarce can wish it less ! 



EGYPT — GREECE — ITALY. 



Byron. 



Greece has been a corpse for centuries ; and the 
monuments of her arts are dispersed on the four winds. 
She lives only in memory. Egypt is a mummy, whose 
features can scarcely be recognised. Her pyramids are 
empt}", and her catacombs will soon be tenantless. India 
is a huge prison, where the human mind has been frozen, 
though beneath a vertical sun — spell-bound in the ada- 
mantine chains of a gloomy superstition — paralyzed, as to 
all progression, by a senseless policy, for four centuries. 
The intermediate countries are little better than hordes of 
semi-barbarians, presenting!' few excitements so strong as 
the desire to get out of them. Italy is different. Her 
mountains, her valleys, and her plains are still romantic, 
beautiful, fertile. She is peopled almost as numerously 
by the dead as by the living — the former in shapes and 
colours more animated than the latter ! The results of 
ancient genius and of modern art — of natural talent and 
of acquired science^ — the efforts of the human mind and 
body, in past and present times, are here accumulated to 
a greater extent than in any other country on the face of 

the globe. 

Dr. J. Johnson. 



69 



AMBITION. 



Light of the noble mind ! the proud of earth 
Have ever breathed to thee their matin song ; 
And lofty hearts have mingled in the throng 

That gazed entranced upon thy brightness. Worth 

To thee a minister hath been ; and birth 

No heritage hath claimed ; the student's lore— • 
The poet's verse — for thee their visions soar ! 

Thy beams may gild a throne, or peasant's hearth : 

Fond worshippers have followed o'er the wave, 
And watched thy rays, as mariners the sun : 

Danger hath stood upon the battlement 

Where rushed thy votary with his banner rent — 
Yet pressed he on, till victory's meed was won, 

In wreaths upon his brow, or glory on his grave ! 

P. M. Wetmore. 

EXAMPLE AND EMULATION. 

Perhaps it may not be for the advantage of any nation 
to have the arts imported from their neighbours in too 
great perfection. This extinguishes emulation, and sinks 
the ardour of the generous youth. So many models of 
Italian painting brought to England, instead of exciting 
our artists, is the cause of their small progress in that 
noble art. The same, perhaps, was the case of Rome, 
when it received the arts from Greece. 

A man's genius is always, in the beginning of life, as 
much unknown to himself as to others ; and it is only after 
frequent trials, attended with success, that he dares think 



70 

himself equal to those undertakings, in which those who 
have succeeded have fixed the admiration of mankind. 
If his own nation be already possessed of many models, 
* * * he naturally compares his own juvenile exercises 
with these ; and being sensible of the great disproportion, 
is discouraged from any farther attempts, and never aims 
at a rivalship with those authors whom he so much 
admires. A noble emulation is the source of every excel- 
lence. Admiration and modesty naturally extinguish 
this emulation. And no one is so liable to an excess of 
admiration and modesty as a truly great genius. Next 
to emulation, the greatest encourager of the noble arts is 
praise and glory. He is animated with new force when 
he hears the applauses of the world for his former pro- 
ductions ; and, being roused by such a motive, he often 
reaches a pitch of perfection which is equally surprising 

to himself and others. 

Hume. 

CONVIVIAL EPITAPH. 

Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind, 

He's not left a wiser or better behind : 

His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand; 

His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; 

Still born to improve us in every part. 

His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. 

To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, 

When they judged without skill, he was still hard of 

hearing : 
When they talked of their Raphaels, Corregio, and stuff, 
He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff. 

Goldsmith. 



71 



CHANTRY'S WASHINGTON. 

Transcendent form ! that from the unconscious stone 

Hast risen into being and to fame ; 
Proud monument of art ! which not alone 

The Hero's image, but the Artist's name 
Perpetuates to gratitude, and swells 
The consecrated temple where it dwells. 

How glorious thus to contemplate a name 

Revered by every nation ! and to know 
That Albion's genius honours thus our fame, 

And makes Italia' s tribute marble glow ; 
Nor leaves of Roman art or Grecian spoil 
A nobler object on her classic soil. 

Already porticoes like Greece, and domes 

Like towering Rome, their grace and grandeur lend 

To endear and decorate our native homes ; 
And sculpture, tending to its noblest end, 

Confined to one immortal object still. 

Bestows Canova's, Houdon's, Chantry's skill.* 

Let Europe then her choicest labours send ! 

Such lessons suit Columbia's daring sons, 
Whose pencils, emulous of fame, contend 

Already in the race that Albion runs : 
The Sun of Art which glowed in Rome, may rise 
To equal splendour in our Western skies. 

* Canova's statue of Washington, in Roman costume, at Raleigh, 
N. C. ; Hottdon's, in the continental uniform, at Richmond,, Va. ; and 
Chantry^s, in civic costume, at Boston, Mass. 



72 

Mature in youth, a nation at our birth, 

We start where Europe stops, or at her side 

Extend our commerce o'er the distant earth, 
And press where Science leads inventive pride 

So may our arts advance ; to fulness start, 

And live enshrined within a people's heart. 



R.P. 



FACE TO FACE. 

We can scarcely imagine a thing much more pleasant, 
indeed, to an artist, than to be brought face to face with 
some famous person, and permitted to examine and scru- 
tinize his features, with that careful and intense curiosity 
that seems necessary to the perfecting a likeness. 

Barry Cornwall. 



PORTRAITURE. 

That the admirers of Portrait painting are many, the 
annual exhibitions show us ; and it is pleasant to read 
the social and domestic affections of the country in these 
innumerable productions. In the minds of some they 
rank with historical compositions ; and there can be no 
doubt that Portraits which give the form and the soul of 
poets and statesmen and warriors, and of all Avhose actions 
or whose thoughts lend lustre to the land, are to be re- 
ceived as illustrations of history. * * * The painter 
who wishes for lasting fame must not lavish his fine 
colours and choice postures on the rich and titled alone ; 
he must seek to associate his labours with the genius of 
his country. a. Cunningham. 



73 



HUMAN CAPACITY. 



One science only will one genius fit ; 

So vast is art, so narrow human wit. 

Pope. 



NOTHING PERFECT. 

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, 
Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. 

Pope. 

GLASS. 

Who, when he saw the first sand or ashes, by a casual 
in tenseness of heat, melted into a metalline form, rugged 
with excrescences, and clouded with impurities, would 
have imagined, that in this shapeless lump lay concealed 
so many conveniences of life, as would in time constitute 
a great part of the happiness of the world? Yet by 
some such fortuitous liquefaction was mankind taught to 
procure a body at once in a high degree solid and trans- 
parent, which might admit the light of the sun, and ex- 
clude the violence of the wind ; which might extend the 
sight of the philosopher to new ranges of existence, and 
charm him at one time with the unbounded extent of the 
material creation, and at another with the endless subor- 
dination of animal life ; and, what is yet of more import- 
ance, might supply the decays of nature, and succour old 
age with subsidiary sight. Thus was the first artificer in 
glass employed without his own knowledge or expecta- 

7 



74 

tion. He was facilitating and prolonging the enjoyment 
of light, enlarging the avenues of science, and conferring 
the highest and most lasting pleasures ; he was enabling 
the student to contemplate nature, and the beauty to be- 
hold herself. 

Johnson. 



SLEEP. 

Hushed is the world in night and sleep ; 

Earth, sea, and air are still as death ; 
Too rude to break a calm so deep. 

Were music's faintest breath. 

■* * -X * * * 

No voice is on the air of night, 
Through folded leaves no murmurs creep, 

Nor star, nor moonbeam's trembling light 
Falls on the placid brow of sleep. 
Descend, bright visions, from your airy bower, 
Dark, silent, solemn is your favourite hour. 

Mrs. Hemans. 



BIRTH OF ART. 

People may say what they please about the gradual 

improvement of the Arts. It is not true of the substance. 

The Arts and the Muses both spring forth in the youth 

of nations, like Minerva from the front of Jupiter, all 

armed ; manual dexterity may, indeed, be improved by 

practice. 

S.T. Coleridge. 



75 



FANCY. 



Come, Fancy ! with thy soul-enraptimng power, 
And lead me through the fairy haunts, where dwell 
Thy magic influences ; * * -» 

-*- i^ * * * * 

Where'er thou art, I woo thee from thy cell, 

And give to thee the visions of this hour. 

* * * Ji^ * 

O, dip thy pencil in the Iris' hues. 
And paint thy dwelling place — twin sister of the Muse ! 

P. M. Wetmore. 

DELICACY OF TASTE. 

Whatever connexion there may be originally between 
these two species of delicacy, I am persuaded, that no- 
thing is so proper to cure us of this delicacy of passion, 
as the cultivating of that higher and more refined taste, 
which enables us to judge of the characters of men, of 
compositions of genius, and of the productions of the 
nobler arts. A greater or less relish for those obvious 
beauties, which strike the senses, depends entirely upon 
the greater or less sensibility of the temper; but with 
regard to the sciences and liberal arts, a fine taste is, in 
some measure, the same with strong sense, or at least, 
depends so much upon it that they are inseparable. In 
order to judge aright of a composition of genius, there 
are so many views to be taken in, so many circumstances 
to be compared, and such a knowledge of human nature 



78 

requisite, that no man, who is not possessed of the 
soundest judgment, will ever make a tolerable critic in 
such performances. And this is a new reason for culti- 
vating a relish in the liberal arts. Our judgment will 
strengthen by this exercise. We shall form juster no- 
tions of life. Many things which please or afflict others 
will appear to us too frivolous to engage our attentions ; 
and we shall lose by degrees that sensibility and delicacy 
of passion which is so incommodious. * * * Nothing 
is so improving to the temper as the study of the beauties 
of poetry, eloquence, music, or painting. They give a 
certain elegance of sentiment to which the rest of man- 
kind are strangers. The emotions which they excite are 
soft and tender. They draw off the mind from the 
hurry of business and interest ; cherish reflection ; dis- 
pose to tranquillity ; and produce an agreeable melan- 
choly, which, of all dispositions of the mind, is the best 

suited to love and friendship. 

Hume. 



ADAM AND EVE. 

Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall. 
Godlike erect ! with native honour clad, 

* « * seemed lords of all. 
And worthy seemed ; for in their looks divine 
The image of their glorious Maker shone, 
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure ; 

•^ ^ v^ -Jp: >i^ "^ 

For contemplation he, and valour formed ; 
For softness she, and sweet attractive grace ; 

* * * -* * 



77 

His fair large front and eye sublime declared 
Absolute rule ; and hyacinthine locks 
Round from his parted forelock manly hung 
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad : 
She, as a veil, down to the slender waist, 
Her unadorned golden tresses wore, 
Dishevelled ; but in * * * ringlets waved, 
As the vine curls her tendrils. « * 

* * ^ ■«■ ■:\i * 

So passed they * « * on, nor shunned the sight 
Of God or angel, for they thought no ill. 
So hand in hand they passed ; « * 

Adam, the goodliest man of men, since born, 
His sons ; the fairest of her daughters. Eve. 

Milton. 

SENTIMENT OF BEAUTY. 

Some there are, who contend that the laws of taste are 
not primitive, but secondary ; that our admiration of 
beauty in material objects is resolvable into other and 
original emotions, and, more especially, by means of the 
associating principle, into our admiration of moral ex- 
cellence. Let the justness of this doctrine be admitted, 
and its only effect on our peculiar argument is, that the 
benevolence of God, in thus multiplying our enjoyments, 
instead of being indicated by a distinct law for suiting 
the human mind to the objects which surround it, is in- 
dicated both by the distribution of those objects, and by 
their investment with such qualities as suit them to the 
previous constitution of the mind — that he hath pencilled 
them with the very colours, or moulded them into the 



78 

very shapes which suggest either the graceful or the 
noble of human character ; that he hath imparted to the 
violet its hue of modesty, and clothed the lily in its robe 
of purest innocence, and given to the trees of the forest 
their respective attitudes of strength or delicacy; and 
made the whole face of nature one bright reflection of 
those virtues which the mind and character of man had 
originally radiated. If it be not the implantation of a 
peculiar law in mind, it is, at least, by a peculiar disposi- 
tion of tints and forms in external nature, that he hath 
spread so diversified a loveliness over the panorama of 
visible things ; and thrown so many walks of enchant- 
ment around us ; and turned the sights and the sounds of 
rural scenery into the ministers of so much and such ex- 
quisite enjoyment ; and caused the outer world of matter 
to image forth in such profusion those various qualities, 
which at first had pleased or powerfully afibcted us in 
the inner world of consciousness and thought. 

Chalmers. 

HEBREW MAIDEN. 

She walks in beauty, like the night 

Of cloudless climes and starry skies : 
And all that's best of dark and bright 

Meet in her aspect and her eyes : 
Thus mellowed to that tender light 

Which heaven to gaudy day denies. 
* « * * * * 

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow. 

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, 



79 

The smiles that win, the tints that glow, 
But tell of days in goodness spent, 

A mind at peace with all below, 
A heart whose love is innocent ! 



EMULATION. 



Byron. 



Whatever is done skilfully appears to be done with 

ease ; and art, )vhen it is once matured to habit, vanishes 

from observation. We are, therefore, more powerfully 

excited to emulation by those who have attained the 

highest degree of excellence, and whom we can therefore 

with least reason hope to equal. 

Johnson. 



WASHINGTON.* 

Triumphant Art ! By whom the mighty dead, 
Long snatched from sight and solemnly entombed, 

Again spring up, with living lustre spread 
O'er every feature, by thy touch relumed ! 

How mildly dignified ! How nobly grave ! 
A purer joy can freemen wish to share 

Than when is burst the dark sepulchral cave. 
And thus, in life's expressiveness, appear 

The great, who godlike lived and glorious died ; 

Who served and saved their country— who have been 
Her shield and strength through war's appalling scene ; 

In peace, her honour, guardian, ornament, and pride 1 

Dr. Godman. 

* The portrait by R. Peale, in the United States Senate chamber. 



80 



MEMORY. 



Memory is like moonlight, the reflection of brighter 
rays emanating from an object no longer seen ; and all 
our retrospects of the past times, as well as our individual 
remembrances, partake of the softening splendour which 
covers small faults and imperfections by grand masses of 
shade, and brings out picturesque beauties and points of 
interest with apparently brighter efliilgence than even 
when the full sunshine of the present beaming upon 
them, suffers at the same time the eye to be distracted, 
and the mind otherwise engaged by a thousand minor 
particulars. * « * That which was in itself harsh and 
rude in form, acquires, as it decays, a picturesque beauty 
which it never knew in its prime. 

G. P. R. James. 



WITCH OF ATLAS. 

The all-beholding sun had ne'er beholden. 
In his wide voyage o'er continents and seas. 

So fair a creature, as she lay enfolden 
In the warm shadow of her loveliness ;— 

He kissed her with his beams, and made all golden 
The chamber of gray rock in which she lay — 
She, in that dream of joy, dissolved away, 

* j^ * * * 

A lovely lady garmented in light 

From her own beauty — deep her eyes, as are 
Two openings of unfathomable night 

Seen through a tempest's cloven roof — her hair 



81 

Dark — the dim brain whirls dizzy with delight, 

Picturing her form ! her soft smiles shone afar, 
And her low voice was heard like love, and drew 
All living things toward this wonder new. 

* * * iS * * 

For she was beautiful : her beauty made 

The bright world dim, and every thing beside 

Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade : 
No thought of living spirit could abide, 

AVhich to her looks had ever been betrayed, 
On any object in the world so wide, 

On any hope within the circling skies, 

But on her form, and in her eyes. 

Shelley. 



SOCIAL RECREATION. 

After the exercises which the health of the body 
requires, and which have themselves a natural tendency 
to actuate and invigorate the mind, the most eligible 
amusement of a rational being seems to be that inter- 
change of thoughts which is practised in free and easy 
conversation ; where suspicion is banished by experience, 
and emulation by benevolence ; where every man speaks 
with no other restraint than unwillingness to oflfend, and 
hears with no disposition than desire to be pleased. 

There must be a time in which every man trifles ; and 
the only choice that nature off*ers us is, to trifle in com- 
pany or alone. To join profit with pleasure, has been an 
old precept among men who have had very different con- 
ceptions of profit. All have agreed that our amusements 
should not terminate wholly in the present moment, but 



82 

contribute more or less to future advantage. He that 
amuses himself among well-chosen companions, can 
scarcely fail to receive, from the most careless and ob- 
streperous merriment which virtue can allow, some use- 
ful hints, nor can converse on the most familiar topics 
without some casual information. The loose sparkles 
of thoughtless wit may give new light to the mind, and 
the gay contention for paradoxical positions rectify the 
opinions. 

This is the time in which those friendships that give 
happiness or consolation, relief or security, are generally 
formed. A wise and good man is never so amiable as in 
his unbended and familiar intervals. Heroic generosity 
or philosophical discoveries may compel veneration and 
respect, but love always implies some kind of natural 
or voluntary equality, and is only to be excited by that 
levity and cheerfulness which disencumber all minds 
from awe and solitude, invite the modest to freedom, and 

exalt the timorous to confidence. 

Johnson. 



CULTIVATION OF ART. 

The cultivation of the Arts alone is exempt from the 
exercise of dangerous power. They alone unalterably 
and necessarily lead to the attainment of the highest, 
because the happiest, purposes of social intercourse. 
Beauty, physical and intellectual, the ornament and de- 
light of our nature, is their perpetual object. The temple 
of the gi^aces, of all that softens, all that endears, all that 
unites mankind, is the abode of the arts. They take their 
visible course over the surface of all the pleasing emo- 



83 

tions of the mind ; their invisible one penetrates and 
pervades them. They have no existence but from those 
qualities of our nature which soothe, which delight, which 
enrapture. 

" Theirs are the lessons, and the plans of peace, 
To live like brothers, and conjunctive all, 
Embellish life." 

* * * * * * 

No man may aspire to rank with the highest individuals 
of his species, who is not able at least to perceive the 
excellence and beauty of virtue. * * * In a polished 
nation, half the portion of existing vice may be ascribed 
to bad taste, to the want of that cultivation of the mind 
which leads to an habitual preference of the better to the 
worse. The invisible sceptre which sways and fixes 
the public morals of a people, is held by the hand of 
taste. P. Hoare. 



It is this difference of pursuit which marks the morals 
and characters of mankind ; which lays the line between 
the enlightened philosopher and the half-taught citizen ; 
between the civil citizen and the illiterate peasant ; be- 
tween the law-obeying peasant and the wandering savage 
of Africa. The man, the nation, must therefore be good, 
whose chiefest luxuries consist in the refinement of rea- 
son ; and reason can never be universally cultivated, 
unless guided by taste, which may be considered as the 

link between science and common sense. 

Goldsmith. 



84 



SCULPTURE — PAINTING — POETRY. 

Thus all they 
Whose intellect is an o'ermastering power 

Which still recoils from its encumbering clay, 
Or lightens it to spirit, wheresoe'er 
The form which their creations may essay. 

Are bards : the kindled marble's bust may wear 
More poesy upon its speaking brow, 

Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear. 

One noble stroke with a whole life may glow. 

Or deify the canvass till it shine 
With beauty so surpassing all below, 

That they who kneel to idols so divine 
Break no commandment, for high heaven is there 

Transfused, transfigurated ; and the line 
Of poesy, which peoples but the air 

With thought and beings of our mind reflected, 
Can do no more Then let the Artist share 

The palm. By7'on. 



RENOWN. 

Wherever the polite arts appear, and flourish in a 
surpassing degree, the happy native of that soil may, 
without fear of refutation, arrogate to his country the 
rare triumph of universal renown. Other perfections shed 
their lustre like single stars in the canopy of heaven ; 
the influence of the arts alone unites their distant fires, 
and presents the glories of a constellation, * * * 



85 

" Greece ! thou sapient nurse of finer arts, 
Which to bright science blooming fancy bore, 
Be this thy praise, that thou, and thou alone. 
In these hast led the way, in these excelled, 
Crowned with the laurel of assenting time." 

In Greece, the arts were applied to the highest purposes 
of society. They were employed to enforce religion, 
morality, and obedience to the laws. * * * They mul- 
tiplied enjoyments, and improved benevolence. * * * 
Here then they accomplished the signal end for which 
they are intrusted to man by his Creator. 

* * * * * * 

In this progress of greatness, the course of the fine 
arts cannot be omitted nor neglected. According to the 
degree of their cultivation will be estimated the national 
portion of intellectual sensibility, and its capacity for ad- 
vancement in mental elegance. * * * A nation is awful 
by its wisdom, tremendous by its arms, lovely by its 

intellectual arts. 

P. Hoare. 



MAN. 

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, 

How complicate, how wonderful is man ! 

How passing wonder He who made him such ! 

Who centred in our make such strange extremes ! 

From diff'erent natures, marvellously mixed, 

Connexion exquisite of different worlds ! 

Distinguished link in being's endless chain! 

Midway from nothing to the Deity. 

Youngs 

8 



86 



TASTE. 



Refined to the most acute perception of all the degrees 
which lie between the remote extremes of beauty and 
deformity, of pleasure and pain, — taste is any thing but a 
blessing ; unless where there is judgment to go deeper 
into the essential qualities of things, and to discover a 
moral good beneath a physical evil ; because the outward 
aspect of our Avorld, even with all its loveliness, and the 
external character of our circumstances, even with all our 
enjoyments, are such as often to present pictures re- 
pulsive and abhorrent to perceptions more delicate than 
deep. But the cultivation of taste, when confined as it 
ought to be to its proper place, and limited to its proper 
degree, is eminently conducive to our happiness, and 
eventually to our good. Taste should even rule itself, 
and set bounds to its own existence, for its laws are as 
much violated when we are too sublime for useful service, 
and too delicate for duty, as when we descend to the use 
of vulgar epithets, and ape the absurdities of our inferiors. 

S. Stickney. 

TASTE. 

Spirit of heaven ! descending to adorn 
Life's brightest days, of peace and order born; 
* * * « * * 

Of thee enamoured, as he roves around. 
Thou mak'st life's rudest wild enchanted ground : 
Whether the muse allures him to the shades. 
Where meditation courts the tuneful maids ; 



87 

Or touched by music's power, the shell he tries, 

While crowding round responsive passions rise. 

But chief his soul when Painting's glories sway. 

Thou lov'st through nature's walks to lead his way; 

To point her fairest features, and infuse 

A keener pleasure as his eye pursues ; 

O'er each wild scene to wave thy tissued wings, 

And still present the picturesque of things. 

Fair idol of the soul refined ! whose sway 

The graces own — the powers of art obey ; 

* * * * jig 3^ 

Before thy glance life's awkward forms retreat, 
Thy smile is triumph, and thy frown defeat ! 

M. A. Shee. 



MENDICANT MUSIC. 

It is because music addresses itself to the most ex- 
quisite sensations of which we are capable, that its vulgar 
profanation is so peculiarly distressing ; it is because of 
its own purity, and refinement, and adaptation to delicate 
feelings and high sentiments, that we grieve over its 
prostitution to low purposes ; it is because it is properly 
the ecstasy of wo, that we cannot bear to hear it sold for 
filthy pence, grudgingly doled out, or still more grudg- 
ingly denied. We hear, at intervals, amidst all the dust 
and tumult of the city, the tinkling sound of distant music, 
with the accompaniment of a voice that might once have 
been sweet. We listen to a lively strain that should have 
echoed through stately halls, amongst marble pillars, and 
wreaths of flowers. The voice of the minstrel is strained 
beyond its natural pitch, but no ear will listen ; it is mo- 



88 

dulated, but no heart is charmed. The discord of city 
sounds, the rattle of wheels, and the busy tread of many 
feet, carry away the sound, and the sweetness is lost. A 
plaintive lay comes next, but it is alike unavailable in 
moving the multitude, and the wretched minstrels wander 
on, a living exemplification of the impotence of music 
performed without appropriate feeling, persisted in with- 
out fitting accompaniments of time and place, and poured 
upon ungrateful and inattentive ears. 

S. Stickney. 

GREECE. 

And yet how lovely in thine age of wo, 

Land of lost gods and godlike men ! art thou ! 
Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow. 

Proclaim thee Nature's varied favourite now ; 

Thy fanes, thy temples to thy surface bow, 
Commingling slowly with heroic earth. 

Broke by the share of every rustic plough 
So perish monuments of mortal birth. 
So perish all in turn, save well recorded worth. 

* * * * * • * 

Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild ; 

Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields 
Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled. 

And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields ; 

There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds, 
The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain air ; 

Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, 
Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare ; 
Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair. 

Byron, 



89 



THE SITTER. 

There is a pleasure in sitting for one's picture, which 
many persons are not aware of. People are coy on this 
subject at first, coquet with it, and pretend not to like it, 
as is the case with other venial indulgences, but they soon 
get over their scruples, and become resigned to their fate. 

* * * The fact is that having one's picture painted 
is like the creation of another self, and that is an idea 
of the repetition or reduplication of which no man is ever 
tired to the thousandth reflection. * * * I do not con- 
ceive there is a stronger call upon secret gratitude than 
having made a favourable likeness of any one. * * * 
He is no mean friend who conceals from ourselves, or 
only gently indicates, our obvious defects to the world. 

* * * It seems to me a piece of mere impertinence 
not to sit as well as one can in these circumstances. I 
put the best face I can upon the matter, as well out of 
respect to the artist as to myself. * * * I have no 
notion how people go to sleep, who are sitting for their 
pictures. It is an evident sign of want of thought and 
of internal resources. There are some individuals, all 
of whose ideas are in their hands and feet — make them 
sit still, and you put a stop to the machine altogether. 

* * * Children are particularly sensible of this constraint 

from their thoughtlessness. It is the next thing with 

them to wearing the fool's cap at school, yet they are proud 

of having their pictures taken. * * * Charles the First's 

children seem to have been good sitters, and the great 

dog sits like a Lord Chancellor. 

Anon, 

8* 



90 



WINTER. 



I SAW him on his throne, far in the north, 

Him ye call winter, picturing him ever 

An aged man, whose frame, with palsied shiver, 

Bends o'er the fiery element, his foe. 

But him I saw was a young god, whose brow 

Was crowned Mdth jagged icicles, and forth 

From his keen spirit, like eyes, there shone a light 

Broad, blaring, and intensely cold and bright. 

His t .am, like sharp-edged arrows, pierced the air; 

The naked earth crouched shuddering at his feet ; 

His finger on all murmuring waters sweet 

Lay icily, — motion nor sound was there ; 

Nature seemed frozen — dead ; and still and slow 

A winding sheet fell o'er hex features fair, 

Flaky and white, from his wide wings of snow. 

Frances A. Kemhle. 



DOMESTIC TYRANT. 

The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with 
this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always 
in his sight. * * * The domestic oppressor dooms, 
himself to gaze upon those faces which he clouds with 
terror and with sorrow ; and he beholds every moment 
the effects of his own barbarities. He that can bear to 
give continual pain to those who surround him, and can 
walk with satisfaction in the gloom of his own presence ; 
he that can see submissive misery without relenting, and 
meet without emotion the eye that implores mercy, or 



91 

demands justice, will scarcely be amended by remon- 
strance or admonition ; he has found m.eans of stopping 
the avenues of tenderness, and arming his heart against 

the force of reason. 

Johnson. 



SKETCH OF BYRON. 

One long used 
To sojourn among strangers, everywhere 
(Go where he would, along the wildest trac' 
Flinging a charm that shall not soon be lost. 
And leaving footsteps to be traced by those 
Who love the haunts of genius ; one who saw, 
Observed, nor shunned the busy scenes of life. 
But mingled not, and 'mid the din, the stir. 
Lived as a separate spirit. * * « 

* -:r His clustering locks were turned 
Gray ; * * v^ yet his voice, 
Still it was sweet ; still from his eye the thought 
Flashed lightning-like, nor lingered on the way, 
Waiting for words. -;is * * 

* * * He is now at rest ; 
And praise and blame fall on his ear alike, 
Now dull in death. Yes, Byron, thou art gone. 
Gone like a star that through the firmament 
Shot and was lost, in its eccentric course 
Dazzling, perplexing. Yet thy heart, methinks, 
Was generous, noble — noble in its scorn 

Of all things low or little ; nothing there 

Sordid or servile. - 

Rogers. 



92 



MASILLON. 

It seems, says his admirers, that he is yet in the 
pulpit with that air of simplicity, that modest demeanour, 
those eyes humbly declining, those unstudied gestures, 
that passionate tone, that mild countenance of a man 
penetrated with his subject, and conveying to the mind 
the most brilliant light, and to the heart the most tender 
emotions. Baron, the tragedian, coming out from one 
of his sermons, truth forced from his lips a confession 
humiliating to his profession ; " My friend," said he to 
one of his companions, "this is an orator, and we are 
only actors.''^ J. D' Israeli. 

SOLITUDE. 

There is no solitude on earth so deep 

As that where man decrees that man shall weep. 

Mrs. Hemans. 

LAUGHTER. 

Man is the merriest species of the creation ; all above 
and all below him are serious. He sees things in a 
different light from other beings, and finds his mirth 
arising from objects that perhaps cause something like 
pity or displeasure in higher natures. Laughter is in- 
deed a very good counterpoise to the spleen ; and it 
seems but reasonable that we should be capable of re- 
ceiving joy from what is no real good to us, since we 

can receive grief from what is no real evil. 

Addison. 



93 



CRITICS. 



Yet if we look more closely, we shall find 

Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind : 

Nature affords at least a glimmering light ; 

The lines, though touched but faintly, are drawn right ; 

But as the slightest sketch, if justly traced. 

Is by ill colouring but the more disgraced, 

So by false learning is good sense defaced. Pope. 

ORNAMENTS. 

A VIRTUOUS mind in a fair body is indeed a fine picture 
in a good light, and therefore it is no wonder that it 
makes the beautiful sex all over charms. As virtue in 
general is of an amiable and lovely nature, there are some 
particular kinds of it which are more so than others, and 
these are such as dispose us to do good to mankind. 
Temperance and abstinence, faith and devotion, are in 
themselves perhaps as laudable as any other virtues ; but 
those which make a man popular and beloved, are jus- 
tice, charity, munificence, and, in short, all the good 
qualities that render us beneficial to each other. ^ ^ ^ 
The two great ornaments of virtue, which show her in 
the most advantageous views , and make her altogether 
lovely, are cheerfulness and good humour. These gene- 
rally go together, as a man cannot be agreeable to others 
who is not easy within himself. They are both very 
requisite in a virtuous mind, to keep out melancholy 
from the many serious thoughts it is engaged in, and to 
hinder its natural hatred of vice from souring into severity 
and censoriousness. Addison. 



94 



BUFFON. 

Who is he that advances with a firm and gigantic step 
in this route yet unfrequented ? It is an orator, it is a 
poet, it is a philosopher, — it is BufFon ! — whose mind is 
vast as the world — whose imagination is fertile as nature. 
Ages which have flown — ages which will flee away, are 
present to him : neither the height of the heavens, nor 
the profundity of the earth, nor immensity which the 
human eye cannot embrace, nor exiguity which it cannot 
seize, can steal a secret from his genius. Confident of 
the origin and end of things, he sees, divines, explains, 
from the enormous quadruped which weighs upon the 
globe, even to the meanest insect, of which the herb 
shelters its littleness ; exact and magnific, majestic and 
simple, he seems to create. A vulgar idiom translates 
but imperfectly the conceptions of this superior mind. 
That language, new and sublime as his ideas — that lan- 
guage which Bufibn speaks, he himself has created it. 

Arnaud. 

PAINTING. 

THOtJ by whose expressive art 
Her perfect image nature sees. 

In union with the graces start, 
And sweeter by reflection please ; 

In whose creative hand the hues 
Stolen from yon airy rainbow shine, 

1 bless thy Promethean muse. 
And call thee fairest of the Nine ! 



95 

Possessing more than vocal power ! 
Persuasive more than poet's tongue ! 

Whose lineage in a raptured hour,* 
From love, the sire of nature, sprung ! 

Does hope her high professions meet ? 
Is joy triumphant ? sorrow flown ? 

Sweet is the trance, the tremor sweet, 
When all we love is all our own ! 

But ah, thou pulse of pleasure dear. 
How throbbing, cold, I feel thee part ; 

Love's absence plants a pang severe, 
Or death inflicts a keener dart. 

Then for a beam of joy ! to light 
On memory's sad and wakeful eye ; 

Or banish from the noon of night 
Her dreams of deepest agony. 

Shall song its witching cadence roll ? 
Ye now the tenderest air repeat 

That breathed when soul was knit to soul, 
And heart to heart responsive beat. 

What visions rise to charm, to melt ! 
The lost, the loved, the dead are near I 

O hush that strain too deeply felt ! 
O cease that transport too severe ! 

But thou, severely silent art ! 
By heaven and love wast taught to lend 

A milder solace to the heart. 
The sacred image of a friend. 

* Alluding to the supposed origin of painting, from a Corinthian 
female sketching the shadow of her lover's profile, as he lay asleep. 



96 



All is not lost, of that possest : 
Forme, thou sweet memorial, shine, 

While close and closer to my breast 
I hold the idol all divine ; 

Or gazing through luxurious tears, 
Mild o'er the loved departed form, 

Till death's cold bosom half appears 
With life, and speech, and spirit warm. 

She looks, she lives ! this tranced hour, 
Her bright eye seems a purer gem 

Than sparkles on the throne of power, 
Or glory's wealthy diadem. 

Yes, Genius ! yes, thy mimic aid 
A treasure to my soul has given. 

Where beauty's canonized shade 
Smiles in the sainted hues of heaven. 

No spectre forms of pleasure fled. 
The softening, sweetening tints restore, 

For thou canst give me back the dead 
Even in the loveliest look they wore. 

Then blest be nature's guardian muse. 
Whose hand her perished grace redeems. 

Whose tablet of a thousand hues 
The mirror of creation seems. 



Camphell. 



DEFINITION! 



Painting is the intermediate somewhat between a 
thought and a thing. 

S. T. Coleridge. 



97 



NATURAL AND MORAL HARMONY. 

In the wildest appearances of the natural world — in 

the clouds when they are piled in the most irregular 

masses in the atmosphere, there is ever a pervading and 

essential harmony of light, and shade, and form, which 

the common observer feels, though unconsciously, and 

without the perception of which the efforts of the artist 

are u.tterly fruitless. In the scenes and phenomena of the 

moral and intelligent world, a like coherence exists as a 

vital and all connecting element. * * * Nature and truth 

have their own marks which they impress upon every 

work of theirs ; marks which to some extent human art 

may counterfeit, but which, after all, transcend the reach 

of fiction as much as the great Intelligence that upholds 

all objects and controls all events exceeds the mind of 

man. 

W. H. Fumess. 



COLOURS OF LIFE. 

We, like the leaf, the summit, or the wave. 
Reflect the light our common nature gave. 
But every sunbeam, falling from her throne, 
Wears on our hearts some colouring of our own ; 
Chilled in the slave, and burning in the free. 
Like the sealed cavern by the sparkling sea ; 
Lost, like the lightning in the sullen clod. 
Or shedding radiance, like the smiles of God ; 
Pure, pale in virtue, as the star above. 
Or quivering roseate on the leaves of love ; 

9 



Glaring like noontide, M'here it glows upon 
Ambition's sands, — the desert in the sun ; 
Or soft siiffiising o'er the varied scene 
Life's common colouring, — intellectual green, 
Thus Heaven, repeating its material plan. 
Arched over all the rambow mind of man. 

0. W. Holnies. 

CREATION. 

AcKN'owLEDGiNG the Gospcl to be the record, the 

register of sacred truths, I cannot forget that creation is 

tlie scene of their exhibition, the residence of the realit}^ 

God's name is in the Bible ; his presence is in the world. 

Inspiration speaks of his power ; creation exemplifies it. 

Sacred men declare his wisdom ; a more sacred universe 

displays it. 

J. Martineau. 

DREAMS OF LOYE. 

Wake him not, he dreams of bliss, 
His little lips put forth a kiss ; 
His arms, entwined in virgin grace, 
Seem linked in beautiful embrace. 

He smiles, — and on his opening Up 
Might saints refresh and angels sip ; 
He blushes, — 'tis the rosy light 
That morning wears on leaving night. 

He sighs, — 'tis not the sigh of wo ; 
He only sighs that he may know 
If kindred sighs another move ; 
For mutual siffhs are sigfns of love. 



99 

He speaks, — it is his dear one's name ; 
He whispers, — still it is the same ; 
The imprisoned accents strive in vain, 
They murmur through his lips again. 

He wakes ! the silly little boy, 
To break the mirror thus of joy; 
He wakes to sorrow, and in pain ; 
O ! Love, renew thy dreams again. 



Anon. 



H I S T R Y— LANDSCAPE — PORTEAIT. 

An historical scene is a fiction merely. Be it ever so 
true to nature, it is still the fiction of the painter. But a 
Portrait is truth itself. No imagination can compete with 
it. * * « Even in a Portrait (to use the term) of inani- 
mate nature — what assemblage of cataracts, and hills, and 
forests, — what glories of sunset or meridian, may com- 
pare with the little landscape, which restores to us the 
scene of our own quiet home — which brings before us 
our childhood — the tree under which we have played — 
the river beside which we have walked or sported ? Art, 
which never addresses itself, strictly speaking, to our 
reason, is valuable only in proportion as it operates on 
our feelings : these are seldom (and then but little) ex- 
cited by the mere invention of a painter : we rather sym- 
pathize with his difiiculties ; we congratulate him on his 
success : we say, " How admirably has he grouped those 
figiTres ! how finely are the light and shade distributed ! 
■what a grand expression ! what dramatic eff'ect !" We 
look upon the artist as a hero ; he has done much for his 



100 

own fame. But he who gives us the very smile which 
won or warms our hearts — the frank or venerable aspect 
of our friend or father — the dawning beauty of our child 
— or shows us the tender eyes with which the wife or 
mother looks love upon us from a distant region, — he 
seems to have thought of us rather than of his own re- 
nown, and becomes at once our benefactor and our friend ! 

Barry Cornwall. 

THE ENTHUSIAST. 

But she, who set on fire his infant heart. 

And all his dreams, and all his wanderings shared 
And blessed, the Muse, and her celestial art. 

Still claim the enthusiast's fond and first regard. 

From nature's beauties variously compared 
And variously combined, he learns to frame 

Those forms of bright perfection, which the bard, 
While boundless hopes and boundless views inflame. 
Enamoured consecrates to never-dying fame. 

Dr. Beattie. 

CHEERFUL INNOCENCE. 

A CHEERFUL temper, joined with innocence, will make 
beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good- 
natured. It will lighten sickness, poverty, and afiliction ; 
convert ignorance into an amiable simplicity, and render 

deformity itself agreeable. 

Addison. 



101 



MEMORY'S SPELL. 

They both were hushed — the voice — the chords- 
I heard but once the witching lay ; 

And few the tones, and few the words, 
My spell-bound memory brought away. 

In vain with hints from other strains 

I wooed this truant air to come, 
As birds are taught on eastern plains 

To love their wild and kindred home. 
* * * * * 

At length one morning, as I lay 

In that half waking mood, when dreams 
Unwillingly at last give way 

To the full truth of daylight's beams — 

A face,— the very face, methought, 

From which had breathed, as from a shrine 

Of song and soul, the notes I sought,— 
Came with its music close to mine ; 

And sung the long-lost measure o'er,— - 

Each note and word with every tone 
And look, that lent it life before,— 

All perfect — all again my own ! 
* * * * * 

And oft, when memory's wondrou^ spell 

Is talked of in our tranquil bower,*'^ 
I sing this lady's song, and tellS^ 

The vision of that morning hour. 



T. Moore. 



V 



102 



NIGHT. 



Night is the time for rest ; 

How sweet, when labours close, 
To gather round an aching breast 

The curtains of repose ; 
Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head 
Upon our own delightful bed. 

Night is the time for dreams ; 

The gay romance of life. 
When truth that is and truth that seem& 

Blend in fantastic strife ; 
Ah ! visions less beguiling far 
Than waking dreams by daylight are ! 

Night is the time for toil ! 

To plough the classic field, 
Intent to find the buried spoil 

Its wealthy furrows yield ; 
Till all is ours that sages taught, 
That poets sang, or heroes wrought. 
* * * * * 

Night is the time to muse ; 

Then from the eye the soul 
Takes flight, and with expanding views 

Beyond the starry pole, 

Descries athwart the abyss of night 

The dawn of uitcreated light. 

J. Montgomery. 



y 



103 



THE GOOD SIDE. 

There is no object in nature and the world, without 

its good, useful, or amiable side. He who discovers that 

side first in inanimate things is sagacious ; and he who 

discovers it in the animate, is liberal. 

Lavater. 



LIGHT. 

Blest power of sunshine 1 genial day, 
What balm, what life is in thy ray 1 
To feel thee is such real bliss, 
Tha,t had the world no joy but this. 
To sit in sunshine calm and sweet,—- 
It were a world too exquisite 
For man to leave it for the gloom, 
The deep, cold shadow of the tomb ! 



Moore. 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Irving is at once the Raphael and the Teniers of lite- 
rary art. His productions are animated with the grace- 
ful freedom of the Italian painter, and finished with the 
exquisite minuteness of the Flemish artist. * * * He 
rises with the one to sketch the features of nature's grand- 
est scenes, and descends with the other to elaborate the 
lace upon a lady's sleeve. * * * He proceeds with the 
untiring diligence of the painter in the dream of Addison, 
till the picture slowly flowers into perfection under the 



104 

scarce perceptible touches of his pencil. * * * So fresh, 
so vivacious is the offspring of his toil — that it seems to 
proclaim, like the morning lily, that the hand which 
framed its form, and fashioned its beauties, was one that 
wrought with the lightness of a spirit. * * * A work of 
his is not a rose tree, bearing detached beauties, the rest 
neglected and thorny — but it is like a geranium plant, all 
sweetness itself — every leaf a flower. Irving's associa- 
tions are all historical ; * * * every spot of ground is a 
passage in the chronicle of a nation's history. He retires 
to the running brook, and is not affected by the beauty 
of the trickling waters, or the grace of the bending water 
lily ; but he remembers that this stream, which, now clear 
as the conscience of an infant, and quiet as the joy of an 
old man, was once deep stained with the blood of con- 
tending chieftains, and rang with the shouts of victory 
and defeat. He ascends a mountain, not to sketch a scene 
or copy a view, but to weep over the last sigh of the part- 
ing Moor. 

W. S. Somner. 



SILENT ART. 

The youth had started up, and turned away 
From the light nymphs and their luxurious lay, 
To muse upon the pictures that hung round,— 
Bright images, that spoke without a sound, 
And views, like vistas into fairy ground, 
But here again new spells came o'er his sense- 
All that the pencil's mute omnipotence 
Could call up into life, of soft and fair. 
Of fond and passionate, was glowing there ; 



105 

Nor yet too warm, but touched with that fine art 
Which paints of pleasure but the purer part, 
Which knows even beauty when half veiled is best, 
Like her own radiant planet of the west. 
Whose orb when half retired looks loveliest ! 

Moore. 



POPULAR ERRORS. 

The beauties of form, character, and composition, are 
neither so interesting to the public, nor so much cultivated 
by the painter, as other qualities of art, which must be 
considered of an inferior description ; * * * the ideal is 
subordinate to the mechanical ; * * * and although in 
painting, and in music, the taste of the Italian school is 
always spoken of with rapture by the dilettanti of both 
arts ; it nevertheless appears to have made but little real 
progress amongst us. * * * We almost invariably ap- 
plaud the difficult, instead of the agreeable, and mistake 
the vice of the means for the perfection of the end. We 
prefer the strong impulse of surprise to the delicate touch 
of delight, and are seldom satisfied unless we are asto- 
nished. A rapid succession of demi-semi-quavers poured 
forth in a fantastic variety of flights and flourishes, to the 
utter confusion of melody and common sense, we admire 
as the perfection of music. A mechanical sleight of hand, 
a fluttering dexterity of pencil, or a laborious minuteness 
of vulgar imitative detail, we approve as the excellence 
of art. We forget that the most obvious are not the most 
arduous difliiculties ; that the most exquisite eflbrts of 
skill are often concealed in their own ingenuity, and least 
palpable when most successful. 

3L A. Shee. 



106 



THE FANATIC. 

O, the lover may 

Distrust that look which steals his soul away ; 

The babe may cease to think that it can play 

With heaven's rainbow ; alchymists may doubt 

The shining gold their crucible gives out ; 

But faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast 

To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last. 

Moore. 

LEARNING. 

The regard which they whose abilities are employed 
in the works of imagination claim from the rest of man- 
kind, arises in a great measure from their influence on 
futurity. Rank may be conferred by princes, and wealth 
bequeathed by misers or by robbers ; but the honours of 
a lasting name, and the veneration of distant ages, only 
the sons of learning have the power of bestowing. 

Johnson, 

LORDS OF THE EARTH! 

Beautiful ! 
How beautiful is all this visible world ! 
How glorious in its action and itself ! 
But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, 
Half dust, half deity, alike unfit 
To sink or soar, with our mixed essence make 
A conflict of its elements, and breathe 
The breath of degradation and of pride, 



107 

Contending with low wants and lofty will 

Till our mortality predominates, 

And men are — what they name not to themselves, 

And trust not to each other. 

Byron, 



DISPOSITION. 

That it is every man's interest to be pleased, will 
need little proof: that it is his interest to please others, 
experience will inform him. It is therefore not less ne- 
cessary to happiness than to virtue, that he rid his mind 
of passions which make him uneasy to himself, and hate- 
ful to the world ; which enchain his intellects, and obstruct 

his improvement. 

Johnson. 



DISTANT MUSIC. 

And music too — dear music ! that can touch 
Beyond all else the soul that loves it much' — 
Now heard far oif, so far as but to seem 
Like the faint exquisite music of a dream. 



Moore. 



WEALTH OF TASTE. 

Literature, like virtue, is its own reward, and the 
enthusiasm some experience in the permanent enjoyment 
of a vast library, has far outweighed the neglect or the 
calumny of the world, which some of its votaries have 
received. 

s J. D^ Israeli. 



108 



lANTHE ASLEEP. 

Yes ! she will wake again, 
Although her glowing limbs are motionless, 

And silent those sweet lips. 

Once breathing eloquence, 
That might have soothed a tiger's rage. 
Or thawed the cold heart of a conqueror. 

Her dewy eyes are closed. 
And on their lids, whose texture fine 
Scarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath, 

The baby sleep is pillowed : 

Her golden tresses shade 

The bosom's stainless pride. 
Curling like tendrils of the parasite 

Around a marble column. 

« * * * * * 

O ! not the visioned poet in his dreams. 
When silvery clouds float through the wildered brain ; 
When every sight of lovely, wild, and grand, 

Astonishes, enraptures, elevates ; 

When fancy at a glance combines 

The wondrous and the beautiful, — 
So bright, so fair, «o wild a shape 

Hath ever yet beheld, 
As that which reined the coursers of the air. 

And poured the magic of her gaze 

Upon the maiden's sleep. 

Shellei/. 



>- 



109 



PLEASURE AND INSTRUCTION. 

All the fine arts have a double purpose ; they are 

destined both to please and instruct ; — the pencil of the 

painter, like the pen of the philosopher, ought always to 

be directed by reason and good sense. He must present 

to the understanding and judgment of the spectator, 

something more than is offered to the external eye ; his 

art will inspire him, and kindle in his soul the divine 

flame that Prometheus is said once to have brought by 

stealth from the celestial regions. 

Winkelrnan. 



CONSOLATION. 

Is thine a heart the world hath stung, 

Friends have deceived, neglect hath wrung ? 

Hast thou some grief that none may know, 

Some lonely, secret, silent wo ? 

Or have thy fond affections fled 

From earth to slumber with the dead! 

! pause a while — the world disown, 

And dwell with nature's self alone ! 

And though no more she bids arise 

Thy soul's departed energies. 

And though thy joy of life is o'er. 

Beyond her magic to restore ; 
Yet shall her spells o'er every passion steal. 
And soothe the wounded heart they cannot heal. 

Mrs. Heraans. 



10 



110 



B I G T 1^ Y 



She has no head, and cannot think — no heart, and can- 
not, feel ! when she moves, it is in wrath ; when she 
panses, it is amid rnin ! Her prayers are curses ; her 
god is a demon ; her communion is deatli ; her vengeance 
is eternity ; her decalogue is Avritten in the blood of 
saints ; atid if she stops a moment in her llight, it is upon 
a kindred rock to whet her vulture fang for keener rapine, 
and replume her wings for a more sanguinary desolation. 

Anon. 



INDOLENCE. 

It was not by vile loitering in ease 

That Greece obtained the brightest palm of art, 
That soft, yet ardent Athens learned to please, 

To keen the M'it, and to sublime the heart. 

In all supreme ! complete in every part ! 
It was not thence majestic Rome arose. 

And o'er the nations shook her conquering dart : 
For sluggard's brow the laurel never grows : 
Renown is not the child of indolent repose. 

Thomson. 



GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. 

The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity 

made imaginative. It is no doubt a sublimer effort of 

genius than the Greek style ; but then it depends much 

more on execution for its etlect. 

-S. T. Coleridge. 



Ill 



PAINTING. 



Peopling, with art's creative power. 
The lonely home, the silent hour. 

'Tis to the pencil's magic skill 

Life owes the power, almost divine, 
To call back vanished forms at will, 

A.nd bid the grave its prey resign : 
Affection's eye again may trace 

The lineaments beloved so well : 
The speaking look, the form of grace, 

All on the living canvass dwell : 
'Tis there the childless mother pays 

Her sorrowing soul's idolatry ; 
There love can find, in after days, 

A talisman to memory I 

'Tis thine, o'er History's storied page, 

To shed the halo-light of truth ; 
And bid the scenes of by-gone age 

Still flourish in immortal youth — 
The long forgotten battle-field, 

With mailed men to people forth ; 
In bannered pride, with spear and shield. 

To show the mighty ones of earth — 
To shadow, from the holy book, 

The images of sacred lore ; 
On Calvary, the dying look 

That told life's agony was o'er — 
The joyous hearts, and glistening eyes, 

When little ones were suffered near — 



112 

The lips that bade the dead arise, 
To dry the widowed mother's tear : 

These are the triumphs of the art, 
Conceptions of the master mind ; 

Time-shrouded forms to being- start, 
And wondering rapture fills mankind ! 

Led by the light of Genius on, 

What visions open to the gaze ! 
'Tis nature all, and art is gone, 

We breathe with them of other days. 

P. M. Wetmore. 



STRIKING PICTURES. 

It is a poor compliment to pay to a painter to tell him 
that his figure stands out of the canvass, or that you 
start at the likeness of the portrait. Take almost any 
daub, cut it out of the canvass, and place the figare look- 
ing into or out of a window, and any one may take it for 
life. .S. T. Coleridge. 



THE INVADERS. 

They came in their panoplied might, 

In the pride of their chivalrous name ; 
For music to them were the sounds of the fight — 

On the red carnage-field was their altar of fame : 
Thev came as the ocean wave comes in its wrath, 

When the storm-spirit frowns on the deep ; 
They came as the mountain-wind comes on its path, 

When the tempest hath roused it from sleep : 



113 



They were met, as the rock meets the wave, 

And dashes its fury to air ; 
They were met, as the foe should be met by the brave, 

"With hearts for the conflict, but not for despair ! 

P. M. Wetmore. 



EXAMPLE OF GREECE. 

Aristotle tells us, that the Greeks taught their child- 
ren the art of drawing, with a view to enable them to 
judge with discernment and taste, of those bodily pro- 
portions that constitute true beauty. 

Winkelman. 



BURLESQUE! 

The sun prepares to go to bed. 
And leaves the sky with eyes so red 

That in the day were blue — 
She blushes with a crimson glow, 
That in the dark he'd leave her so. 

And weeps in pearly drops of dew ! 



Anon. 



BELISARIUS. 

I LOOK at a painting : it represents an old man, a child, 
a woman giving alms, and a soldier, whose attitude ex- 
presses astonishment. I admire the fidelity, the truth, 
and colouring of the picture ; and my eye is intensely 
gratified. But remaining ignorant of the subject, I go 
away, and the whole shortly vanishes from my memory ; 

10* 



114 

I see it again, and am now strnck with the inscription at 

the bottom, "Date obuUim Belisario." I remember an 

interesting passage of history. A crowd of moral images 

throng upon my spirit ; I soften to tenderness ; and I 

comprehend the affecting lesson, which the artist is giving 

me. I review the painting, again and again : and thrill 

at tlie view of the blind warrior, and of the child holding 

out his helmet to receive alms. 

Droz, 



HAPPY IGNORANCE. 

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, 

Had he thy reason would he skip and play ? 

Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, 

And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. 

O, blindness to the future ! kindly given. 

That each may fill the circle marked by heaven, 

That views with equal eye, as God of all, 

A hero perish, or a sparroM^ fall. 

Pape. 



MODESTY. 

A SIMPLE and modest man lives unknown, until a mo- 
ment, which he could not have foreseen, reveals his 
estimable qualities and his generous actions. I compare 
him to the concealed floM-er springing from an humble 
stem, which escapes the view, and is discovered only by 
its perfume. Pride quickly fixes the eye, and he who is 
adways his own eulogist dispenses every other person 
from the obligation to praise him. A truly modest man. 



115 

emerging from his transient obscurity, will obtain those 

delightful praises which the heart awards without effort. 

His superiority, far from being importunate, will become 

attractive. Modesty gives to talents and virtue the same 

charm which chastity adds to beauty. 

Droz. 



FLOWERS OF THE CITY. 

They who search the untrodden wood for flowers 
Meet in its depth no lovelier ones than ours ; 
For here are eyes that shame the violet, 

Or the dark drop that on the pansy lies ; 
And foreheads, white, as when in clusters set, 

The anemonies by forest fountains rise ; 
And the spring beauty boasts no tenderer streak 
Than the soft red on many a youthful cheek. 

****** 
Soft voices and light laughter wake the street. 

Like notes of woodbirds, and where'er the eye 
Treads the long way, plumes wave, and twinkling feet 

Fall light, as hastes that crowd of beauty by. 

W. C. Bryant. 



GOOD TASTE. 

The beneficial eflfects of good taste are to be found 
even where you least suspect its presence ; it everywhere 
silently excludes wanton superfluity, or useless expendi- 
ture, in labour or ornament; it inculcates a wise and dig- 
nified economy ; it prompts art to achieve its ends by the 
simplest means ; it gives to the productions of mechanical 



116 

skill all the durability and elegance of which they may 
be susceptible, by lending to them those forms, propor- 
tions, combinations of colours, and agreeable associa- 
tions, which, because they are most simply and obviously 
fitted to their peculiar purposes, or are congruous to 
natural principles of man's physical or moral constitution, 
have pleased for ages, and will ever continue to please. 

Yer planch. 



GRECIAN MODELS. 

To form your taste, and educate your eye 
In beauty's school, to polished Greece apply. 

* * % * * * 

She, first the powers of just proportion found. 
And scattered parts in beauteous union bound ; 
Assembled kindred sweets from every clime, 
And formed a standard for admiring time. 

;i< -^ * ^ -^ * 

Though lost her sceptre, yet her learning sways. 
Her arts still dictate, and the world obeys. 
O ! ti'iumph truly great ! to i*ule the mind, 
And hold wits' mild dominion o'er mankind ! 

M. A. Shee. 



COLLOQUIAL WIT. 

Perhaps no kind of superiority is more flattering or 
alluring than that which is conferred by the powers of 
conversation, by extemporaneous sprightliness of fancy, 
copiousness of language, and fertility of sentiment. In 
other exertions of genius, the greater part of the praise is 



117 

unknown and unenjoyed ; the writer, indeed, spreads his 
reputation to a wider extent, but receives little pleasure 
or advantage from the diffusion of his name, and only 
obtains a kind of nominal sovereignty over regions which 
pay no tribute. The colloquial wit has always his own 
radiance reflected on himself, and enjoys all the pleasure 
which he bestows ; he finds his power confessed by 
every one that approaches him, sees friendship kindling 
with rapture, and attention swelling into praise. 

Johnson. 



THE OCEAN. 

O THOU vast ocean ! ever sounding sea ! 
Thou symbol of a dread eternity ! 

* * * ' * « * 
Thy voice is like the thunder, and thy sleep 
Is as a giant's slumber, loud and deep. 

* * * * * * 
Thou trackless and immeasurable main ! 

On thee no record ever lived again 

To meet the hand that writ it : line nor lead 

Hath ever fathomed thy profoundest deeps. 

* * * * * * 

! wonderful thou art, great element : 
And fearful in thy spleeny humour bent, 
And lovely in repose : thy summer form 
Is beautiful, and when thy silver waves 
Make music in earth's dark and winding caves, 

1 love to wander on thy pebbled beach. 
Marking the sunlight at the evening hour, 

And hearken to the thoughts thy waters teach — 
" Eternity, eternity, and power." B. Cornwall. 



118 



THE TERRIBLE IN ART. 

Objects of the greatest terror and distress please in 
painting, and please more than the most beautiful objects 
that appear calm and indifferent. * * * The force of 
imagination, the energy of expression, the power of num- 
bers, the charms of imitation ; all these are naturally, of 
themselves, delightful to the mind. And when the object 
presented lays also hold of some affection, the pleasure 
still rises upon us, by the conversion of this subordinate 
movement into that which is predominant. The passion, 
though perhaps naturally, and when excited by the simple 
appearance of a real object, it may be, painful ; yet is so 
smoothed, and softened, and mollified, when raised by 
the finer arts, that it affords the highest entertainment. 

Hume. 



THE SEASONS. 

Who loves not spring's voluptuous hours, 
The carnival of birds and flowers ? 
Yet who would choose, however dear, 
That spring should revel all the year ? 
Who loves not summer's splendid reign. 
The bridal of the earth and main ? 
Yet who would choose, however bright, 
A dog day noon without a night ? 
Who loves not autumn's joyous round, 
When corn, and wine, and oil abound ' 
Yet who would choose, however gay, 
A year of unrenewed decay ? 



119 

Who loves not winter's awful form ? 
The sphere-born music of the storm ? 
Yet who would choose, how grand soever, 
The shortest day to last forever ? 



Montgomery. 



MATTER. 



Matter, then, is the production of an almighty Intelli- 
gence, and as such entitled to our reverence ; although 
from a just abhorrence of many ancient, and not a few 
modern errors, it has too often been regarded in a low and 
contemptible light. * * « It evinces in every part and in 
every operation the impress of a divine origin, and is the 
only pathway vouchsafed to our external senses by which 
we can walk — 

" Through nature up to nature's God ;" 

that God, whom we behold equally in the painted peb- 
ble and the painted flower — in the volcano and in the 
cornfield — in the wild winter storm and in the soft sum- 
mer moonlight. 

J. M. Good. 



MENTAL PORTRAITURE. 

How many pictures of one nymph we view. 
All how unlike each other, all how true ! 

* * * * * 

Let then the fair one beautifully cry. 
In Magdalen's loose hair and lifted eye. 
Or drest in smiles of sweet Cecilia shine. 
With simpering angels, palms, and harps divine ; 



120 

Whether the charmer sinner it or saint it, 
If folly grow romantic, I must paint it. 

Come then, the colours and the ground prepare ! 
Dip in the rainbow, trick her otF in air, 
Choose a tirm cloud before it fall, and in it 
Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of the minute. 

•^ 'F' ijc 5^ is- -wj^ 

Pictures, like these, dear madam ! to design. 
Ask no firm hand and no unemng line ; 
Some wandering touches, some reflected light. 
Some flying stroke alone can hit them right ; 
For how should equal colours do the knack ? 
Chameleons who can paint in white and black ? 

Pope. 



OUTLINE. 

AVhen the Duke de Choiseid, who was a remarkably 
meagre-looking man, came to London for the purpose of 
negotiating a peace, Charles Townsend, being asked 
whether the French government had sent the prelimina- 
ries of a treaty, answered, " He did not know, but they 

had sent the outline of an ambassador." 

Anon. 



IMITATION. 

Such is the delight we have in imitation, that what 
Avould in itself give neither pleasure nor pain, may be- 
come agreeable when well imitated. We see without 
emotion many faces, and other familiar objects ; but a 
good picture, even of a stone, or common plant, is not be- 



121 

held with indifTerence. No wonder, then, that what is 
agreeable in itself, should, when surveyed through the me- 
dium of skilful imitation, be highly agreeable. A good 
portrait of a grim countenance is pleasing ; but a portrait 
equally good of a beautiful one is still more so. 

J. Beattie. 



MAGNANIMITY. 

If thou art beautiful, and youth 

And thought endue thee all with truth — 

Be strong ; — be worthy of the grace 

Of God, and fill thy destined place ; 

A soul, by force of sorrows, high 

Uplifted to the purest sky 

Of undisturbed humanity ! 

Wordsworth. 



ENTHUSIASM. 

Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth ac- 
complishes no victories without it. 

Bulwer. 



SKETCH. 

Could I paint 
Her picture then ! paint her voluptuous lip. 
With its sweet curl of pride ; the shaded eye 
In its dark liquid lustre ; the fair brow 
With its light wandering veins, and raven braid 
Contrasting with its whiteness ; the faint blush 
11 



122 

Upon her cheek, of maiden modesty, 
And the rich outline, melting into grace. 
Of her unmatched proportions : over all, 
Could I but make the picture eloquent 
With the deep, reedy music of her tone, 
Or lend to you the golden leaf which bears 
The sketch within my memory ! 



N. P. Willis. 



SLATTERN. 

There is a kind of anxious cleanliness which I have 

always noted as the characteristic of a slattern ; it is the 

superfluous scrupulosity of guilt, dreading discovery, and 

shunning suspicion : it is the violence of an effort against 

habit, which, being impelled by external motives, cannot 

stop at the middle point. 

Johnson. 



TRUE TASTE. 

To build, to plant, whatever you intend. 

To rear the column, or the arch to bend. 

To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot, 

In all let Nature never be forgot ; 

But treat the goddess like a modest fair. 

Nor over-dress, nor leave her wholly bare ; 

Let not each beauty everywhere be spied. 

Where half the skill is decently to hide. 

He gains all points who pleasingly compounds, 

Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds. 

Pope. 



123 



BEAUTY AND VIRTUE. 

Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. Every 
natural action is graceful. Every heroic action is also 
decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine. 
We are taught by great actions that the universe is the 
property of every individual in it. Every rational crea- 
ture has all nature for his dowry and estate. It is his, 
if he will. He may divest himself of it ; he may creep 
into a corner, and abdicate his kingdom, as most men do, 
but he is entitled to the world by his constitution. In 
proportion to the energy of his thoughts and will, he 
takes up the world into himself. * * * Nature stretcheth 
out her arms to embrace man, only let his thoughts be 
of equal greatness. Willingly does she follow his etcps 
with the rose and the violet, and bend her lines of grandeur 
and grace to the decoration of her darling child. Only let 
his thoughts be of equal scope, and the frame will suit the 
picture. A virtuous man is in unison with her works, 
and makes the central figure of the visible sphere. 

W. Emerson. 



PORTRAIT. 

He who'd paint the fair 
Must mix the blending colours, soft as air ; — 
To hit the piercing lustre of her eye, 
Must catch the light and azure of the sky : — 
To fill the piece with corresponding glow, 
Must dip his pencil in the eastern bow ; 



124 

Then o'er her locks and dimpled cheeks must shed 
The paley orange, and the lively red ; — 
Must shade the mellow back-ground of the scene 
With mingled tints of violet and green ; — 
Upon her lips, must smiles and graces play ; 
The coral melting in the dews of May, 
Must just disclose the ivory beneath ; — 
And though she breathe not, she must seem to breathe. 

J. Pierpont. 

DIVINE INFLUENCE OF TASTE. 

The Author of nature has shown that it was not be- 
neath his care to provide for the gratification of sentiments 
precisely similar to those which are addressed by the 
arts. The world, composed of hill and dale, mountain 
and valley, not one boundless ploughed field to yield 
food; dressed in gay and bright liveries, not in one 
sober-suited colour ; filled with the music of its streams 
and groves, not doomed to endless monotony or everlast- 
ing silence ; such a world, the dwelling place of nations, 
the school of their discipline, the temple of their worship, 
plainly shows that they were not destined to be pupils 
of cold and stern utility alone, but of many and diversified 
influences ; of gracefulness, of elegance, of beneficence, 
beauty, and sublimity. 

When is our country to work out a higher problem, 

and to show that every thing graceful in art may be 

united with every thing useful in society ; nay, that 

gracefulness, beauty, perfection in art, is one, and one 

not the least of the interests of society ? 

O. Dewey. 



125 



CHANGES OF FASHION, 

A VOLUME on this subject might be made very curious 

and interesting ; for our ancestors were not less vacillating, 

and perhaps more capriciously grotesque, though with 

infinitely less taste, than the present generation. Were 

a philosopher and an artist, as well as an antiquary, to 

compose such a work, much diversified entertainment, 

and some curious investigation of the arts and taste, 

would doubtless be the result; the subject otherwise 

appears of trifling value ; the very farthing pieces of 

history. 

J. D^ Israeli. 



MORAL PERSPECTIVE. 

Howe'er, 'tis well, that while mankind 
Through fate's perverse meander errs. 

He can imagined pleasures find, 
To combat against real cares. 

Fancies and notions he pursues, 

Which ne'er had being but in thought ; 
Each, like the Grecian artist, woos 

The image he himself has wrought. 

* * * * * 

Our hopes, like towering falcons, aim 

At objects in an airy flight : 
The little pleasure of the game 

Is from afar to view the fight. 

* * * * 

11* 



126 

At distance, through an artful glass, 
To the mind's eye things well appear : 

They lose their forms, and make a mass 
Confused and black if brought too near. 



Prior. 



Some figures monstrous and mis-shaped appear, 
Considered singly, or beheld too near. 
Which, but proportioned to their light or place, 
Due distance reconciles to form and grace. 

Pope. 

GRATITUDE. 

Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers, 
In mingled clouds to Him whose sun exalts. 
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints. 

Thomson, 

LIGHT AND VISION, 

Such is the constitution of all things, or such the 
plastic power of the human eye, that the primary forms, 
as the sky, the mountain, the animal, give us a delight 
in and for themselves ; a pleasure arising from outline, 
colour, motion, and grouping. This seems partly owing 
to the eye itself. The eye is the best of artists. By 
the mutual action of its structure and of the laws of light, 
perspective is produced, which integrates every mass of 
objects, of what character soever, into a well-coloured 
and shaded globe, so that where the particular objects 
are mean and unaffecting, the landscape which they com- 



127 

pose is round and symmetrical. And as the eye is the 
best composer, so light is the first of painters. There is 
no object so foul that intense light will not make beautiful. 
* * * But besides this general grace diffused over na- 
ture, almost all the individual forms are agreeable to the 
eye, as is proved by our endless imitations of some of 
them, as the acorn, the grape, the pine-cone, the wheat 
ear, the egg^ the wings and forms of most birds, the 
lion's claw, the serpent, the butterfly, sea-shells, flames, 
clouds, buds, leaves, and the forms of many trees, as the 

palm. 

W. Emerson, 



THE MASTER PENCIL. 

Who can paint 

Like nature ? Can imagination boast 

Amid her gay creation, hues like hers ? 

And can he mix them with that matchless skill. 

And lay them on so delicately fine. 

And lose them in each other, as appears 

In every bud that blows ? 

Thomson. 



ARISTOTLE. 

Diogenes Laertius describes the person of the Stagy- 
rite. — His eyes were small, his voice hoarse, and his 
legs lank. He stammered, was fond of a magnificent 
dress, and wore costly rings. * * * Aristotle had nothing 
of the austerity of the philosopher, though his works are 
so austere ; he was open, pleasant, and even charming 



128 

in his conversation ; fiery and volatile in his pleasures. 

* * * He is described as fierce, disdainful, and sarcastic. 

He joined to a taste for profound erudition that of an 

elegant dissipation. His passion for luxury occasioned 

him such expenses when he was young, that he consumed 

all his property. 

J. D^ Israeli. 



THE FLOWER SPIRIT. 

When earth was in its golden prime, 

Ere grief or gloom had marred its hue. 
And Paradise, unknown to crime. 

Beneath the love of angels grew ; 
Each flower was then a spirit's home. 

Each tree a living shrine of song. 

■* * -* * ■* 

A voiceless eloquence and power — 

Language that hath no life in sound — 
Still haunts, like truth, the spirit flower, 

And hallows even sorrow's ground. 
The wanderer gives it memory's tear, 

WhUst home seems pictured on its leaf; 
And hopes, and hearts, and voices dear. 

Come o'er him — ^beautiful as brief. 

'Tis not the bloom, though wild or rare, 

* * * •*■ v^ 

Which melts and moves our souls — 

* * * * * 

I will believe a spirit dwells 

Within the flower ! 

C. Swain, 



129 



PLEASURE. 



Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought ; 
our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled 
by unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their 
odours from time to time in the paths of life, grow up 
without culture from seeds scattered by chance. 

The great source of pleasure is variety. Uniformity 

must tire at last, though it be uniformity of excellence. 

We love to expect ; and when expectation is disappointed 

or gratified, we want to be again expecting. 

Johnson. 



MUSIC. 

Young thoughts have music in them, love 

And happiness their theme ; 
And music wanders in the wind 

That lulls a morning dream. 
And there are angel voices heard 

In childhood's frolic hours, 
When life is but an April day 

Of sunshine and of flowers. 

There's music in the forest leaves 

When summer winds are there. 
And in the laugh of forest girls 

That braid their sunny hair. 
The first wild bird that drinks the dew 

From violets of the spring. 

Has music in his song, and in 

The fluttering of his wing. 

F. G. Halleck, 



130 

THE STORM PAINTER. 
Bring me the music of the sweeping sea ! 

Within me dwells a flame, 

An eagle caged and tame, 
Till called forth by the harping of the blast ; 

Then is its triumph hour, 

It springs to sudden power, 
As mounts the billow o'er the quivering mast. 

Then, then, the canvass o'er. 

With hurried hand I pour 
The lava waves and gusts of my own soul ! 

Kindling to fiery life 

Dreams, worlds of pictured strife ;-^ 
Wake, rushing winds, awake ! and, dark clouds, roll ! 

F. Hemans. 

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. 

The Greeks and Romans erected a temple to each 
individual of their numerous deities. The buildings were 
consequently of limited extent. * * * The citizens sacri- 
ficed singly to the gods, or attended public festivals, 
comprehending large masses of the people ; in which 
event the officiating priest or priestess entered the temple, 
and the assembled votaries were grouped without. In 
our churches, on the contrary, the population of a city 
is often congregated for hours ; and how magnificently 
adapted for the object is the vast and solemn interior of a 
Gothic cathedral, in which the voice of the priest rever- 
berates like thunder, and the chorus of the people rises 



131 

like a mountain gust, praising the great Father of all, 
and rousing the affrighted conscience of the infidels ; 
while the mighty organ, the tyrant of music, rages like a 
hurricane, and rolls his deep floods of sound in sublime 
accompaniment ! How grand were the conceptions of 
the rational barbarians to whom Europe is indebted for 
these vast and noble structures ! And how immeasura- 
bly they surpass, for all meditative purposes, the modern 
application of Greek and Roman temples, on an enlarged 
scale, to the purposes of Christian worship ! 

Blackwood's Magazine. 

THE CONCEIT. 

I LOVE sweet features ; I will own 

That I should like myself 
To see my portrait on a wall, 

Or bust upon a shelf; 
But nature sometimes makes one up 

Of such sad odds and ends, 
It really might be quite as well 

Hushed up among one's friends ! 

0. W. Holmes, 



PICTURES IN CHURCHES. 

Painting is a language as truly as that which is heard 
from the pulpit. Whose mind would not be touched 
and elevated, if, as he took his seat in church and waited 
a few moments, perhaps, for the service — ^better so than 
the service should wait for him— he could fix his eye 
upon some scripture scene living upon the canvass ; 



132 

upon some saint, rapt and entranced in heavenly contem- 
plation ; or upon some noble martyr, triumphing through 
faith over the agonies of death ? The silent walls would 
then teach us. We should worship, as it were, amidst 
the innumerable company of saints and angels ; the 
shadowy forms of the venerated dead would seem to 
hover around our altars ; and we should meditate and 

pray amid the opening visions of heaven. 

O. Dewey. 



THE FORGOTTEN ONE. 

Thou art forgotten ! thou, whose feet 

Were listened for like song ! 
They used to call thy voice so sweet ; 

It did not haunt them long. 
Thou, with thy fond and fairy mirth — 
How could they bear their lonely hearth ! 

There is no picture to recall 

Thy glad and even brow ; 
No profiled outline on the wall 

Seems like thy shadow now ; 

They have not even kept to wear 

One ringlet of thy golden hair. 

Miss Landon, 



W. IRVING'S PENCIL. 

Mr. Irving writes well, because he thinks well ; be- 
cause his ideas are just, clear, and definite. He knows 
what he wants to say, and expresses it distinctly and in- 



133 

telligibly, because he so apprehends it. There is also no 
affectation in the writer, because there is none in the 
man. There is no pomp in his sentences, because there 
is no arrogance in his temper. There is no overloading 
with ornament, because, with the eye of an artist, he 
sees when he has got enough ; and he is sprightly and 
animated because he catches his tints from nature, and 
dips his pencil in truth, which is always fresh and racy. 

North American Review. 



VOICE OF NATURE. 

To him who, in the love of nature, holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language ; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty ; and she glides 
Into his darker musings, with a mild 
And gentle sympathy, that steals away 

Their sharpness ere he is a\vare. 

Bryant. 

CIVILIZATION. 

We are apt to entertain erroneous notions of the plea- 
sures enjoyed in past ages. Fabulists have represented 
them as peaceful, innocent, and gay ; but if we look nar- 
rowly into the conditions of the savage and barbarian of 
the present day, and recollect that these are the states of 
all individuals before the acquisition of scientific know- 
ledge, we shall not much or long regret the pretended 

diminution of enjoyment by civilization. 

lo G' Comhe. 



134 



THE HERDSMAN. 



O, THEN, what soul was his, when on the tops 

Of the high mountains, he beheld the sun 

Rise up and bathe the world in light ! He looked — 

Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth, 

And ocean's liquid mass, beneath him lay 

In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touched, 

And in their silent faces did he read 

Unutterable love. Sound needed none, 

Nor any voice of joy ; his spirit drank 

The spectacle ; sensation, soul, and form 

All melted into him ; they swallowed up 

His animal being ; in them did he live, 

And by them did he live ; they were his life, 

In such access of mind, in such high hour 

Of visitation from the living God, 

Thought was not ; in enjoyment it expired. 

No thanks he breathed ; he proffered no request ; 

Rapt into still communion that transcends 

The imperfect offices of prayer and praise 

His mind was a thansgiving to the Power 

That made him ; it was blessedness and love ! 

Wordsworth. 



GENIUS — JUDGMENT — TASTE. 

Nature produces innumerable objects ; to imitate them 
is the province of genius ; to direct these imitations is 
the property of judgment ; to decide on their effects is 
the business of taste. For taste, who sits as supreme 



135 

judge on the productions of genius, is not satisfied when 
she merely imitates nature : she must also, says an inge- 
nious French writer, imitate beautiful nature. It requires 
no less judgment to reject than to choose, and genius 
might imitate what is vulgar, under pretence that it was 
natural, if taste did not carefully point out those objects 

which are most proper for imitation. 

H. More. 



THIS BEAUTIFUL WORLD 

Look on this beautiful world, and read the truth 
In her fair page ; see, every season brings 

New change, to her, of everlasting youth ; 
Still the green soil, with joyous living things, 
Swarms ; the wide air is full of joyous wings. 

And myriads, still, are happy in the sleep 
Of ocean's azure gulfs, and where he flings 

The restless surge. Eternal love doth keep 
In his complacent arms, the earth, the air, the deep. 

W. C. Bryant. 



NATIONAL PRIDE. 

The names and the works of men of genius become 
the property of their country ; they form a rich and 
lasting possession, which it is a legitimate object of patriot- 
ism to acquire and increase. Older nations, in summing 
up the long catalogue of their statesmen, poets, and scho- 
lars, are proud to add to it such as those of Angelo, Ca- 
nova, Raphael, Rembrandt, Poussin, Claude, Murrillo, 
Rubens, Reynolds, and Lawrence : why should not we 



136 

do the same ? To be able to do it very little is needed. 

The natural talent is here, and, when conscious of its 

heaven-given strength, but uncertain how to apply it, it 

heaves and pants in the young breast, and rises in vain 

aspirations after it knows not what, or wastes itself in 

blind efforts ; how little is wanting to unveil to it the 

secret of its own powers ; to give it a steady and true 

direction ; and enable it to expand and dilate itself by its 

own energies to the full stature and majestic proportions 

of genius ! 

Verplanck. 



AUTUMN WOODS. 

Ere, in the northern gale. 
The summer tresses of the trees are gone, 
The woods of autumn, all around our vale, 

Have put their glory on. 

The mountains that infold, 
In their wide sweep, the coloured landscape round, 
Seem groups of giant kings, in purple and gold. 

That guard the enchanted ground. 

-rjc 5jt ^ ^ \^ /jt 

Let in through all the trees. 
Come the strange rays ; the forest depths are bright ; 
Their sunny-coloured foliage, in the breeze, 

Twinkles, like beams of light. 

* * * * s^ 

O, autumn ! why so soon 
Depart the hues that make thy forests glad ; 
Thy gentle wind and thy fair sunny noon. 

And leave thee wild and sad ? 



137 

Ah, 'twere a lot too blest 

Forever in thy coloured shades to stray ; 

Amidst the kisses of the soft southwest 

To rove and dream for aye ! 

W. C. Bryant. 



PORTRAIT OF MILTON. . 

The portrait of Adam is his own. His hair was ad- 
mirable — his eyes of extraordinary clearness ; no defect 
could be perceived in them ; it would have been impossi- 
ble to guess that he was blind. If we were not aware 
what party rage can do, could we believe that it would 
make it a crime for a man to be blind ? But let us thank 
this abominable hate — we owe to it some exquisite lines. 
Milton first replies that he lost his sight in the defence 
of liberty, then adds these passages, full of sublimity and 
tenderness. 

" In the night that surrounds me, the light of the Divine 
Presence shines the more brightly for me. God beholds 
me with greater tenderness and compassion, because I 
can see naught but him. The divine law ought not only 
to shield me from injury, but to render me more sacred ; 
not on account of the loss of sight, but because I am 
under the shadow of the divine wings, which seem to 
produce this darkness in me. To this I attribute the 
affectionate assiduities of my friends, their soothing atten- 
tions, their kind visits, and their respectful behaviour." 

Milton rose at four in the morning during summer, 
and at five in the winter. He wore almost invariably a 
dress of coarse gray cloth ; studied till noon ; dined fru- 
gally ; walked Mdth a guide ; and, in the evening, sang, 

12* 



138 

accompanying himself on some instrument. He under- 
stood harmony, and had a fine voice. He for along time 
addicted himself to the practice of fencing. To judge by 
Paradise Lost, he must have been passionately fond of 
music and the perfume of flow^ers ; he supped off five or 
six olives and a little water ; retired to rest at nine, and 
composed at night, in bed. When he had made some 
verses, he rang, and dictated to his wife or daughters. 
On sunny days he sat on a bench at his door. 

Chateaubriand. 



VIRTUE. 

By thee inspired, O Virtue, age is young, 

And music warbles from the faltering tongue : 

Thy ray creative cheers the clouded brow. 

And decks the faded cheek with rosy glow, 

Brightens the joyless aspect, and supplies 

Pure heavenly lustre to the languid eyes : 

But when youth's living bloom reflects thy beams, 

Resistless on the view the glory streams ; 

Love, wonder, joy, alternately alarm, 

And beauty dazzles with angelic charm. 

Br. Beaitie. 



POET AND PAINTER. 

It is the peculiar privilege of the portrait painter to 
immortalize beauty, to give duration to the most perish- 
able of heaven's gifts, and bestow upon the fair "a thou- 
sand years of bloom." When the poet has done his ut- 
most to describe the charms which kindled his fancy and 



139 

inspired his song ; when in the divine spirit of his art he 
has arrayed 

'The thing he doats upon, with colouring 

Richer than roses, brighter than the beams 

Of the clear sun at morning" — 
when he has decked out the idol of his imagination in all 
the pomp of words, and similes culled from whatever is 
sweetest and loveliest in creation— the bloom of flowers, 
the freshness of the dawn, the breathings of the spring, 
and the sparkling of the stars — he has but given us the 
elements, out of which we compose a beauty, each after 
a fashion and fancy of our own. Painting alone can 
place before us the personal identity of the poet's divi- 
nity — made such by the superstition of love. 

Mrs. Jameson. 



COMPARISON OF BEAUTY. 

A MAN, who has had no opportunity of comparing the 

different kinds of beauty, is indeed totally unqualified to 

pronounce an opinion with regard to any object presented 

to him. By comparisons alone w^e fix the epithets of 

praise or blame, and learn how to assign the due degree 

of each. The coarsest daubing contains a certain lustre 

of colours and exactness of imitation, which are so far 

beauties, and would affect the mind of a peasant or Indian 

with the highest admiration. * * * One accustomed to 

see, and examine, and weigh the several performances, 

admired in different ages and nations, can alone rate the 

merits of a work exhibited to his view, and assign its 

proper rank among the productions of genius. 

Hume. 



140 



TO GENEVRA. 

Thine eyes' blue tenderness, thy long fair hair, 
And the wan lustre of thy features — caught 
From contemplation — where, serenely wrought, 

Seems sorrow's softness charmed from its despair — 

Have thrown such speaking sadness in thy air, 
That — ^but I know thy blessed bosom fraught 
With mines of unalloyed and stainless thought — 

I should have deemed thee doomed to earthly care. 

With such an aspect, by his colours blent, 
When from his beauty-breathing pencil born, 

(Except that thou hast nothing to repent,) 
The Magdalen of Guido saw the morn — 

Such seemed thou — but how much more excellent ! 
With naught remorse can claim — nor virtue scorn. 

Byron. 

ANOMALY. 

Man obviously stands pre-eminent among sublunary 
objects, and is distinguished by remarkable endowments 
above all other terrestrial beings. Nevertheless, no 
creature presents such anomalous appearances as man. 
Viewed in one aspect, he almost resembles a demon ; in 
another, he still bears the impress of the image of God. 
Seen in his crimes, his wars, and his devastations, he 
might be mistaken for an incarnation of an evil spirit ; 
contemplated in his schemes of charity, his discoveries 
in science, and his vast combinations for the benefit of 
his race, he seems a bright intelligence from heaven. 

G. Combe. 



141 



COMMERCE AND THE ARTS. 
Trade is the golden girdle of the globe. 

* * ■*■ * i^ * 

Ingenious Art, with her expressive face, 
Steps forth to fashion and refine the race ; 
Not only fills necessity's demand. 
But overcharges her capacious hand ; 
Capricious taste itself can crave no more 
Than she supplies from her abounding store ; 
She strikes out all that luxury can ask. 
And gains new vigour at her endless task. 
Hers is the spacious arch, the shapely spire. 
The painter's pencil, and the poet's lyre ; 
From her the canvass borrows light and shade, 
And verse, more lasting, hues that never fade. 
She guides the finger o'er the dancing keys. 
Gives difficulty all the grace of ease. 
And pours a torrent of sweet notes around, 
Fast as the thirsting ear can drink the sound. 

These are the gifts of Art, and Art thrives most 
Where commerce has enriched the busy coast. 

Cowper. 



WEALTH. 

Wealth is nothing in itself — it is not useful but when 
it departs from us ; its value is found only in that which 
it can purchase, which, if we suppose it put to its best 
use by those that possess it, seems not much to deserve 
the desire or envy of a wise man. It is certain that, with 



142 

regard to corporal enjoyment, money can neither open 
new avenues to pleasure, nor block up the passages of 
anguish. Disease and infirmity still continue to torture 
and enfeeble, perhaps exasperated by luxury, or promoted 
by softness. With respect to the mind, it has rarely 
been observed that wealth contributes much to quicken 
the discernment, enlarge the capacity, or elevate the ima- 
gination ; but may, by hiring flattery, or laying diligence 
asleep, confirm error and harden stupidity. Wealth can- 
not confer greatness, for nothing can make that great 
which the decree of nature has ordained to be little. 

Johnson. 



MENTAL MIRROR. 

Would that there were mirrors for the mind, as well 

as for the face. The understanding is often deceived, 

because there is nothing to represent it truly ; and every 

judge of himself, being seduced by inclination, will 

always find some loop-hole or other to evade censure. 

Self-love makes us put on spectacles, to see the things 

larger than concern ourselves. 

J. Northcote. 



WINTER. 

Let winter come ! let polar spirits sweep 
The darkening world, and tempest-clouded deep ! 
Though boundless snows the withered heath deform ! 
And the dim sun scarce wanders through the storm ; 
Yet shall the smile of social love repay, 
With mental light, the melancholy day ! 



143 

And, when its short and sullen noon is o'er, 
The ice-chained waters slumbering on the shore, 
How bright the faggots in his little hall 
Blaze on the hearth, and warm the pictured wall ! 

Campbell. 



DILIGENCE. 

The certainty that life cannot be long, and the proba- 
bility that it will be much shorter than nature allows, 
ought to awaken every man to the active prosecution of 
whatever he is desirous to perform. It is true that no 
diligence can ascertain success ; death may intercept the 
swiftest career ; but he who is cut off in the execution of 
an honest undertaking, has at least the honour of falling 
in his rank, and has fought the battle, though he missed 

the victory. 

Johnson. 



BEAUTY. 

Not faster in the summer's ray 

The spring's frail beauty fades away. 

Than anguish and decay consume 

The smiling virgin's rosy bloom, 

Some beauty's snatched each day, each hour ; 

For beauty is a fleeting flower ; 

Then how can wisdom e'er confide 

In beauty's momentary pride ? 

Elphinston. 



144 



CHILDREN. 



A BEAUTIFUL child, I have often thought, is the only living 
thing that could bear to be transformed alive to heaven. 
If nature had made me a painter, I certainly think that I 
should have devoted myself to the portraiture of children. 

Camphdl. 

HOPE. 

With thee, sweet Hope ! resides the heavenly light 
That pours remotest rapture on the sight : 
Thine is the charm of life's bewildered way. 
That calls each slumbering passion into play. 
Waked by thy touch, I see the sister band, 
On tiptoe watching, start at thy command, 
And fly where'er thy mandate bids them steer, 
To pleasure's path, or glory's bright career. 

* * * * * * 
Beloved of heaven ! the smiling muse shall shed 
Her moonlight halo on thy beauteous head ; 
Shall swell thy heart to rapture unconfined, 
And breathe a holy madness o'er thy mind. 

* * * * * * 
Cease, every joy, to glimmer on my mind, 

But leave — O ! leave — the light of hope behind ! 

What though my winged hours of bliss have been, 

Like angel visits, few, and far between ! 

Her musing mood shall every pang appease 

And charm — when pleasures lose the power to please. 



145 

Eternal Hope ! when yonder spheres sublime 
Pealed their first notes to sound the march of time, 
Thy joyous youth began — ^but not to fade — 
When all the sister planets have decayed ; 
When rapt in fire the realms of ether glow, 
And heaven's last thunder shakes the world below ; 
Thou, undismayed, shalt o'er the ruin smile, 
And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile ! 

Campbell. 



OCCUPATION. 

It would seem impossible to a solitary speculatist, that 
a human being can want employment. To be born in 
ignorance, with a capacity of knowledge, and to be placed 
in the midst of a world filled with variety, perpetually 
pressing upon the senses and irritating curiosity, is surely 
a sufficient security against the languishment of inatten- 
tion. Novelty is indeed necessary to preserve eagerness 
and alacrity ; but art and nature have stores inexhaustible 
by human intellect ; and every moment produces some- 
thing new to him, who has quickened his faculties by 

diligent observation. 

Johnson. 



TRUTH. 

Thus error's monstrous shapes from earth are driven ; 
They fade, they fly — ^but truth survives their flight ; 

Earth has no shades to quench that beam of heaven ; 
Each ray, that shone, in early time, to light 
The faltering footsteps in the path of right, 

13 



146 

Each gleam of clearer brightness, shed to aid 
In man's maturer day his bolder sight, 

All blended, like the rainbow's radiant braid, 
Pour yet, and still shall pour, the blaze that cannot fade. 

W. C. Bryant. 



GRECIAN ART. 

The most superficial observer must be struck with 
that simplicity without insipidity, that similarity without 
sameness, which appear in the productions of the Greeks. 
A kind of family likeness may be said to pervade the 
whole of their works, which, while it preserves and dis- 
plays the common character of their art, at the same time 
admits and exemplifies every variety of form, feature, 
and expression, that is necessary to mark, with the most 
delicate discriminations, the distinctive shades of real 
or imaginary beings. Whatever the subject, there is 
nothing capricious, arbitrary, or accidental in their mode 
of treating it. All is the result of measured propriety, 
of ascertained truth, and settled principle. 

The maxims of their taste seem to have obtained the 
consistency of a code, and to have been established by 
general convention ; for however varied their productions, 
in beauty, character, and expression, they all appear to 
be executed in the same style : their artists seem all to 
have worked by the same light, and to have been guided 
by principles which regulated even the caprices of fancy, 
and conducted sensibility to science. Always seeking 
the perfection of every quality and characteristic of the 
subject which they proposed to represent, they pre- 
served and aggrandized the general and essential forms, 



147 

— suppressed or diminished the particular and unim- 
portant: they subjected the impetuosity of genius to 
the discipline of industry, and purified taste by reflection 
and philosophy. 

M.A.Shee. 



REFLECTION ON THE WATER. 

You see 
In yonder lake, reflected rock and tree 
Each leaf at rest, or quivering in the air, 
Now rests, now stirs as if a breeze were there-— 
Sweeping the crystal depths. How perfect all ! 
And see those slender top boughs rise and fall ; 
The double strips of silvery sand unite — 
Above, below, each grain distinct and bright. 
— Thou bird, that seek'st thy food upon that bough, 
Peck not alone ; that bird below, as thou. 
Is busy after food, and happy, too. 
— They're gone ! both pleased, away together fled. 

R. H. Dana. 



REWARD OF LABOUR. 

In times when industry and the arts flourish, men are 
kept in perpetual occupation, and enjoy, as their reward, 
the occupation itself, as well as those pleasures which are 
the fruit of their labour. The mind acquires new vigour ; 
enlarges its powers and faculties ; and, by an assiduity 
in honest industry, both satisfies its natural appetites, and 
prevents the growth of unnatural ones, which commonly 
spring up, when nourished by ease and idleness. Banish 



148 

these arts from society, you deprive men both of action 
and of pleasure ; and leave nothing but indolence in their 
place. You even destroy the relish of indolence, which 
never is agreeable but when it succeeds to labour, and 
recruits the spirits exhausted by too much application 
and fatigue. ' Hume. 

POETIC FABLES. 

Though round the Muse the robe of song is thrown, 

Think not the Poet lives in verse alone. 

Long ere the chisel of the Sculptor taught 

The lifeless stone to mock the living thought ; 

Long ere the Painter bade the canvass glow 

With every line the forms of beauty know ; 

Lonff ere the Iris of the Muses threw 

On every leaf its own celestial hue ; 

In fable's dress the breath of genius poured, 

And warmed the shapes that later times adored. 

O. W. Holmes. 



IMAGINATION. 

The happy paintings even of a dream bring joy, until 
their rainbow hues melt away. The dreams of the imagi- 
nation have greatly the advantage over those of sleep ; 
our will gives them birth — we prolong, dissipate, and 
renew them at pleasure. AU who have learned to multi- 
ply these happy moments, know, at the same time, how 
to enjoy these agreeable visions, and paint with enchant- 
ment those dreamy hours which they owe to the effer- 
vescence of a gay imagination. 

Droz. 



149 



LIBERTY. 



O Liberty ! the prisoner's pleasing dream, 

The poet's muse, his passion, and his theme ; 

Genius is thine, and thou art Fancy's nurse ; 

Lost without thee the ennobling powers of verse, 

Heroic song from thy free touch acquires 

Its clearest tone, the rapture it inspires : 

Place me where winter breathes his keenest air, 

And I will sing if Liberty be there ; 

And I will sing at Liberty's dear feet. 

In Afric's torrid clime, or India's fiercest heat. 

* * * -^ * * 

Incomparable gem! thy worth untold; 

Cheap though blood-bought, and thrown awaj^ when sold ; 

May no foes ravish thee, and no false friend 

Betray thee, while professing to defend ! 

Prize it, ye ministers ; ye monarchs, spare 

Ye patriots, guard it with a miser's care. 

Cowper. 



GOOD-HUMOUR. 

Gayety is to good-humour as animal perfumes to ve- 
getable fragrance. The one overpowers weak spirits, 
the other recreates and revives them. Gayety seldom 
fails to give some pain ; the hearers either strain their 
faculties to accompany its towerings, or are left behind 
in envy or despair. Good-humour boasts no faculties 
which every one does not believe in his own power, and 
pleases principally by not offending. Johnson. 

13* 



150 



SPIRIT OF GREECE. 

Spirit of ancient Greece ! whose form sublime, 
Gigantic striding, walks the waves of time ; 
Whose voice from out the tomb of ages came, 
And fired mankind to freedom and to fame ; 
Beneath thy sway how life's pnre flame aspired ! 
How genius kindled, and how glory fired ; 
How taste, refining sense — exalting soul. 
Enfranchised mind from passion's coarse control ! 
Aroused to deeds, by heaven and earth revered, 
While all the majesty of man appeared. 

* * * ■^ vS * 

Lo ! from the ashes of thy arts arise 
Those phcenix fires that glitter in our skies ; 
Thy sun, long set, still lends a twilight ray, 
That cheers our colder clime, and darker day ; 
Exhales high feelings from our glowing hearts, 
Inflames our genius, and refines our arts : 
Still at thy shrine the hero's vows aspire. 
The patriot kindles there his purest fire ; 
Thy virtues still applauding ages crown. 
And rest on thy foundations their renown ! 
Beneath the mighty ruins of thy name, 
We build our humbler edifice of fame, 
Collect each shattered part, each shining stone 
Of thy magnificence, by time o'erthrown. 
Arrange the rich materials, rapt, amazed, 
And wonder at the palace we have raised. 

M. A. Shee. 



151 



COLLECTIONS OF PORTRAITS. 

A TASTE for collecting Portraits or busts was warmly 

pursued in the happier periods of Rome. * * * What is 

more agreeable to the curiosity of the mind and the eye 

than the portraits of great characters ? « * * Lord Or- 

ford preferred an interesting portrait, to either landscape 

or historical painting. ' A landscape,' said he, 'however 

excellent in its distribution of wood, and water, and 

buildings, leaves not one trace in the memory ; historical 

painting is perpetually false in a variety of ways, in the 

costume, the grouping, the portraits, and is nothing 

more than fabulous painting ; but a real portrait is truth 

itself; and calls up so many collateral ideas as to fill an 

intelligent mind more than any other species. 

J. D'' Israeli. 



EMULATION. 

Young Genius there, while dwells his kindling eye 
On forms, instinct with bright divinity, 
While new-born powers, dilating in his heart. 
Embrace the full magnificence of Art, 
From scenes by Raphael's gifted hand arrayed, 
From dreams of heaven, by Angelo portrayed ; 
From each fair work of Grecian skill sublime, 
Sealed with perfection, " sanctified by time ;" 
Shall catch a kindred glow, and proudly feel 
His spirit burn with emulative zeal ; 
Buoyant with loftier hopes his soul shall rise, 
Imbued at once with nobler energies ; 



152 

O'er life's dim scenes on rapid pinion soar, 
And worlds of visionary grace explore, 
Till his bold hand give glory's day-dreams birth, 
And with new wonders charm admiring earth. 

3frs. Hemans. 



PROUD MODESTY 

It is to be regretted that men of genius have not been 
careful to transmit their own Portraits to their admirers ; 
it forms a part of their characters ; a false delicacy has 
interfered. Erasmus did not like to have his own dimi- 
nutive person sent down to posterity, but Holbein was 
always affectionately painting his friend ; Bayle and 
others have refused ; but Montesquieu once sat to Dacier, 
after repeated denials, won over by the ingenious argu- 
ment of the artist. " Do you not think," said Dacier, 
*' that there is as much pride in refusing my offer as in 
accepting it?" * * * Of Gray, Shenstone, Fielding, and 
Akenside, we have no heads for which they sat ; a cir- 
cumstance regretted by their admirers and by physiog- 
nomists. 

J. D^ Israeli. 



DREAMS. 

O that dreams were not dreams, for mine have been 
The shadow of my hopes. Hence have I grown 
In love with ideal forms. In youth I saw 
Most beauteous beings in mine hours of sleep- 
Fair maidens with their bright and sunny locks 
Falling o'er necks whose hue was of the snow. 



153 

O'er bosoms whose soft throbbings not the veil 
Of gossamer could hide from the tranced eye. 
* * * * * « 

Time flew, and I am now 
An aged man with hoary hair, and step 
All trembling ; yet I entertain a crowd 
Of dreams, but they are of the world whereto 
Age and hopes crushed are hurrying me. 



Jones. 



CIVILIZATION. 

Luxury is a relative term. When the first rude in- 
habitants of the earth sought shelter from the inclemency 
of the seasons in a hollow tree, then luxury began. * * * 
We lay out our grounds, we trim our hedges, we erect 
palaces, we decorate our rooms in silk and linens, we 
are seated on skins or the wool of animals, and we repose 
on beds of down. At what precise point we are to stop 
in this dangerous career, it is not easy to say ; but it is 
by this that taste is displayed, the eye gratified, the limbs 
reposed, the ingenious encouraged, the mechanic fed, 
the poor comforted, and the world combined, associated, 

and improved. 

Anon. 



LORD CHATHAM. 

In him Demosthenes was heard again ; 
Liberty taught him her Athenian strain ; 
She clothed him with authority and awe. 
Spoke from his lips, and in his looks gave law. 



154 

His speech, his form, his action, full of grace, 

And all his country beaming in his face, 

He stood, as some inimitable hand 

Would strive to make a Paul or Tully stand. 

No sycophant or slave, that dared oppose 

Her sacred cause, but trembled when he rose ; 

And every venal stickler for the yoke 

Felt himself crushed at the first word he spoke. 

Cowper. 

SPRING. 

The Spring affords, to a mind so free from the disturb- 
ance of cares or passions as to be vacant to calm amuse- 
ments, almost every thing that our present state makes 
us capable of enjoying. The variegated verdure of the 
fields and woods, the succession of grateful odours, the 
voice of pleasure pouring out its notes on every side, 
with the gladness apparently conceived by every animal, 
from the growth of its food, and the clemency of the 
weather, throw over the whole earth an air of gayety, 
significantly expressed by the smile of nature. 

Johnson. 



MEMORY. 

Hail, Memory, hail ! in thy exhaustless mine 
From age to age unnumbered treasures shine ! 
Thought, and her shadowy brood, thy call obey, 
And place and time are subject to thy sway ! 
Thy pleasures most we feel when most alone, 
The only pleasures we can call our own. 



155 

Lighter than air, Hope's summer visions die, 
If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky ; 
If but a beam of sober reason play, 
Lo, fancy's fairy frost-work melts away ! 
But can the wiles of art, the grasp of power. 
Snatch the rich relics of a well-spent hour ? 
These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight, 
Pour round her path a stream of living light ; 
And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest, 
Where Virtue triumphs, and her sons are blest ! 

Rogers. 

JULIUS CJESAR. 

It is possible to be a very great man and to be still 
very inferior to Julius Caesar, the most complete charac- 
ter, so Lord Bacon thought, of all antiquity. Nature 
seems incapable of such extraordinary combinations as 
composed his versatile capacity, which was the wonder 
even of the Romans themselves. The first general — the 
only triumphant politician — inferior to none in eloquence 
— comparable to any in the attainments of wisdom, in an 
age made up of the greatest commanders, statesmen, 
orators, and philosophers that ever appeared in the world 
— an author who composed a perfect specimen of mili- 
tary annals in his travelling carriage — at one time in a 
controversy with Cato, at another writing a treatise on 
punning, and collecting a set of good sayings — fighting 
and making love at the same moment, and willing to 
abandon both his empire and his mistress for a sight of 
the Fountains of the Nile. Such did Julius Caesar ap- 
pear to his contemporaries, and to those of the subsequent 



156 

ages, who were the most inclmed to deplore and execrate 

his fatal genius. But we must not be so much dazzled 

with his surpassing glory, or with his magnanimous, his 

amiable qualities, as to forget the decision of his impartial 

countrymen : He was justly slain. 

Hobhouse. 



MUSIC. 

We love the grove, we love the grove, 

When songsters fill the air ; 
But when the night has hushed their song, 

There is no beauty there. 

We love the charm, we love the charm, 

That beauty lends to earth ; 
But were it not for music's power. 

What, then, were beauty worth ? 

We love to think, we love to think, 

Of bliss beyond the skies ; 

But then 'tis song, 'tis song alone 

That makes it paradise ! 

S. S. G. 



ENTHUSIASM. 

Enthusiasm is a beneficent enchantress, who never 
exerts her magic but to our advantage, and only deals 
about her friendly spells in order to raise imaginary 
beauties, or to improve real ones. The worst that can 
be said of her is, that she is a kind deceiver, and an oblig- 
ing flatterer. 

Fitzosborne. 



157 



WOMAN. 

To Man, the monarch of the earth he trod, 

Great, yet disconsolate, amid his home, 

She came like mercy, robed beyond all dreams, 

In such unvisioned mastery of form — • 

With brow so pregnant with divinity — 

With eye so lumined from its godlike fount — 

With tongue so angel toned, and voice like lyres- 

In every thing so chiseled like the work 

Of some heaven-guided sculptor, that she sat, 

At once the guardian and the joy of man, 

Bound to his leaping heart. 

G. Melle7i. 



WITCHERY OF NATURE. 

For want of the power which is in nature, our writers 
of romance are compelled to make all their heroines 
beautiful — to place them upon thrones, or beds of violets 
— to spangle them over with pearls, and blanch them to 
the whiteness of snow — to wreath them with roses, and 
scatter flowers beneath their feet — to endoAv them with 
all languages, and all gifts of music and eloquence, pour- 
ing forth the wisdom of the sage from the lips of the 
cherub. But it is not so in common life ; there is a 
witchery in nature which it is impossible for art to attain, 
and a truly charming woman, clad in russet weeds, may 
darn her husband's stockings and be charming still, 

S. Stickney. 
14 



158 



LOVE OF AN ARTIST.* 

In early youth, with fancy bright and warm, 
I learned to love — ^but 'twas a mystic form 
That only at a distance could be seen. 
The ocean wide and foreign lands between, — 
A maid of noble mien and moving grace. 
All truth resplendent in her winning face ! 
A stranger on our soil, she could not dwell 
So near the woodsman's axe, or savage yell ; 
But just appeared to kindle an emotion, 
Then sought her glorious home beyond the ocean. 
At times majestic, as in Rome, she caught 
Historic grandeur and impassioned thought ; 
Or, gayly sporting 'mid Venetian wealth. 
Luxurious shone with all the bloom of health ; 
And every form her varying aspect bore, 
A mystic charm and fascination wore ; 
Whether in chaste simplicity arrayed. 
Or gorgeous in magnificent parade. 

I gazed — ^how fondly gazed ! — nor ever tired ; 
My heart and temples throbbed, — my brain was fired ; 
And naught but hope to win her gave a zest 
To life and toil that else had been unblest. 
This early passion no one e'er reproved. 
For all admired what I so deeply loved. 

In riper age, in distant climes, I sought 
The cherished object of my constant thought. 
More lovely still as still more closely viewed ; 
And, once possessed, life knew no other good. 

* Written on being advised to retire into the country. 



159 

I wooed the maid, — she smiled, — and in her smile 
I revelled with delight ; but saw the while 
That others shared her smiles more blest than I ; 
They knew her long beneath a favouring sky ; 
But I had not, as they, bestowed entire 
My heart, while social ties allayed its fire. 
Three times returning to my native land, 
I strove the enduring passion to command, 
And thrice I called oblivion to my aid ; 
But still the alluring vision of the maid 
Returned, with heightened charms, to mock my pride 
That would renounce the wealth of such a bride ; 
For through all nature, — mountain, valley, plain ; 
In air, on ocean, — ^lies her vast domain. 
It could not be ; nor could I bear to die 
Till her own Italy should bless my eye : 
With renovated health, despondence fled. 
And Rome bore witness that my soul was wed. 
Forsake the object of my choice ? Forsake 
The genial spirit that sustained me ? Break 
The bond that bound me unto life ? O, never 
May aught on earth the fated union sever ! 
But, cherished to the latest breath, my heart 
Shall glow, — still glow for painting, peerless art ! 

R.P. 



PATRIOTISM— LOVE. 

What state could fall, what liberty decay, if the zeal 
of man's noisy patriotism was as pure as the silent pu- 
rity of a woman's love ? 

Bulwer 



160 



ITALY. 

A LAND 

Which was the mightiest in its old command, 
And is the loveliest, and must ever be 

The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand, 
Wherein were cast the heroic ani the free, 
The beautiful, the brave — the lords of earth and sea. 

The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome ! 

And ever since, and now, fair Italy ! 
Thou art the garden of the world, the home 

Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree ; 

Even in thy desert, what is like to thee ? 
Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste 

More rich than other climes' fertility ; 
Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced 
With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced, 

Byron. 

RISE OF ART. 

There is certainly something accidental in the first 
rise and progress of the Arts in any nation. I doubt 
whether a very satisfactory reason can be given, why 
ancient Rome, though it derived all its refinements from 
Greece, could attain only to a relish for statuary, paint- 
ing, and architecture, without reaching the practice of 
those arts : while modern Rome has been excited by a 
few remains found among the ruins of antiquity, and has 
produced artists of the greatest eminence and distinction. 

Hume. 



161 



THE GOLDEN AGE, 



The golden age never leaves the world : it exists still, 
and shall exist, till love, health, poetry, are no more — ^but 
only for the young. 



Bulwer. 



CHILDHOOD. 

Thou bright spirit ! though wishes only show 
How weak we are — ^how little 'tis we know, 
My heart will wish that childhood's sacred power 
Could still prolong its consecrating hour. 

* * * * * * 
For childhood's bosom is the poet's dream, 
The soul is darkened yet by earth, the gleam 
Of light that was in Paradise, the tree 
Whose fruit is genius, power, and immortality ! 

* -* * * ■«• * 
And hence the artist and the poet draw 
Their power to charm, to elevate, to awe ; 
Faithful to childhood's love and interests, lo ! 
On beauty calling, — Paradise again doth glow ! 

Miss E. P. Peahody. 



UNDERSTANDING AND TASTE. 

It seldom or never happens, that a man of sense, who 

has experience in any art, cannot judge of its beauty ; 

and it is no less rare to meet with a man who has a just 

taste without a sound understanding. 

2 ^* Hume. 



162 



DISCRIMINATION. 

It is justly considered as the greatest excellency of 
art, to imitate nature ; but it is necessairy to distinguish 
those parts of nature which are most proper for imita- 
tion : greater care is still required in representing life, 
which is so often discoloured by passion or deformed by 
wickedness. * * * It is therefore not a sufficient vindi- 
cation of a character, that it is drawn as it appears ; for 
many characters ought never to be drawn : nor of a nar- 
rative, that the train of events is agreeable to observation 
and experience. * * * There have been men indeed 
splendidly wicked, whose endowments threw a bright- 
ness on their crimes, and whom scarce any villany made 
perfectly detestable, because they never could be wholly 
divested of their excellencies ; but such have been in all 
ages the great corrupters of the world, and their resem- 
blance ought no more to be preserved, than the art of 
murdering without pain. * * * While men consider 
good and evil as springing irom the same root, they will 
spare the one for the sake of the other, and in judging, 
if not of others, at least of themselves, will be apt to es- 
timate their virtues by their vices. To this fatal error 
all those will contribute, who confound the colours of 
right and wrong, and, instead of helping to settle their 
boundaries, mix them with so much art, that no common 
mind is able to disunite them. * * * It is therefore to 
be steadily inculcated, that virtue is the highest proof of 
understanding, and the only solid basis of greatness ; and 
that vice is the natural consequence of narrow thoughts ; 
that it begins in mistake, and ends in ignominy. 

Johnson. 



163 



EXERCISE. 

By toil our long-lived fathers earned their food ; 
Toil strung the nerves, and purified the blood: 
But we their sons, a pampered race of men, 
Are dvi^indled down to threescore years and ten. 
Better to hunt in fields for health unbought, 
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. 
The wise for cure on exercise depend ; 
God never made his work for man to mend. 
* * * * ^ * 

He 'scapes the best ; who, nature to repair, 
Draws physic from the fields in draughts of vital air. 

J Dry den. 

MODELS. 

The advantage of studying the finest models of the 
human figure, as exhibited in painting and sculpture, is 
to raise our ideas of the excellence of forms and propor- 
tions to which our nature is capable of attaining ; for, other 
conditions being equal, the most perfect forms and pro- 
portions are always the best adapted for health and ac- 
tivity. G. Combe. 

SENTIMENT. 

There is no form upon our earth. 
That bears the mighty Maker's seal, 

But has some charm : to draw this forth, 

We need but hearts to feel. Mrs. Hale. 



164 



CITIES. 

I DO confess them nurseries of the arts 

In which they flourish most ; where, in the beams 

Of warm encouragement, and in the eye 

Of public note, they reach their perfect size. 

Such London is, by taste and wealth proclaimed 

The fairest capital of all the world. — 

* ■« * * * -^ 

There, touched by Reynolds, a dull blank becomes 

A lucid mirror, in which Nature sees 

All her reflected features. Bacon there 

Gives more than female beauty to a stone, 

And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips. 

Nor does the chisel occupy alone 

The powers of sculpture, but the style as much ; 

Each province of her art, her equal care. 

Cowper. 

JUDGMENT. 

A PICTURE that is thoroughly understood in the whole, 
and well performed in the particulars ; that is begun in 
the foundation of geometry, carried on by the rules of 
perspective, architecture, and anatomy, and perfected by 
a good harmony, a just and natural colouring, and such 
passions and expressions of the mind as are almost pecu- 
liar to Raphael ; — this is what you may justly style a 
wise picture, and which seldom fails to strike us dumb, 
until we can assemble all our faculties to make but a tole- 
rable judgment upon it. Other pictures are made for the 



165 

eyes only, as rattles are made for children's ears ; and 
certainly that picture that only pleases the eye, without 
representing some well chosen part of nature or other, 
does but show what fine colours are to be sold at the 
colour-shop, and mocks the works of the Creator. If the 
best imitator of nature is not to be esteemed the best 
painter, but he that makes the greatest show and glare 
of colours ; it will necessarily follow, that he who can 
array himself in the most gaudy draperies is best dressed, 
and he that can speak loudest is the best orator. Every 
man when he looks on a picture should examine it ac- 
cording to that share of reason he is master of, or he will 
be in danger of making a wrong judgment. If men when 
they walk abroad would make more frequent observations 
on those beauties of nature which every moment present 
themselves to their view, they would be better judges 
when they saw her well imitated at home. This would 
help to correct those errors which most pretenders fall 
into, who are over hasty in their judgments, and will not 
stay to let reason come in for a share in the decision. It 
is for want of this that men mistake in this case, and in 
common life, a wild extravagant pencil for one that is 
truly bold and great; an impudent fellow for a man of 
true courage and bravery ; hasty and unreasonable actions 
for enterprises of spirit and resolution ; gaudy colouring 
for that which is truly beautiful ; a false and insinuating 
discourse for simple truth elegantly recommended. The 
parallel will hold through all the parts of life and painting 
too ; and the virtuosos above mentioned will be glad to see 
you draw it with your terms of art. As the shadows in 
a picture represent the serious or melancholy, so the 
lights do the bright and lively thoughts. As there should 



166 

be but one forcible light in a picture Mhich should cat^^h 

the eye ;uid t\ill on the hero, so thei*e should be but one 

object of our love, even tlie Author of natui*e. 

Steele, 



NAPOLEON— ST. HELENA. 

Here sleeps ho now, alone I — not one. 

Of all the kinirs whose crowns he g-ave. 
Bends o'er his dust : nor wife nor son 

Has ever seen or sought his grave. 

****** 
High is his tomb: the ocean tlood. 

Far, far below, by storms is curled — 
As round him heaved, while high he stood, 

A stormy and unstable world. 

****** 
Pause here ! The fnr-otV world at last 

Breathes free, the hand that shook its thrones. 
And to the eai'th its mitivs cast. 

Lies powerless now beneath these stones. 

Hark ! comes tliorc iVoui the pyramids, 

And from Siberian wastes o( snow, 
And Europe's hills, a voice that bids 

The world he awed to mourn him ? No ! 

The only, the perpetual dirge 

That's heard here is the sea-binVs cry — 
The mournt'ul mourner of the surge. 

The clouds' deep voice, the winds' low sigh. 

J. Pierpofit, 



167 



ACTIVITY. 



Napoleon, in exile, said, " Let us live upon the 
past," but he found this impossible ; his predominant 
desires originated in love of approbation and self-esteem, 
and the past did not stimulate them, or maintain them in 
constant activity. In like manner, no musician, artist, 
poet, or philosopher would reckon himself happy, how- 
ever extensive his attainments, if informed, " Now you 
must stop and live upon the past ;" and the reason is still 
the same; the pursuit of new acquirements, and the dis- 
covery of new fields of investigation, excite and maintain 
the faculties in activity ; and activity is enjoyment. 

G. Combe. 



LOVE AND BEAUTY. 

Love ! no habitant of earth thou artn— 
An unseen seraph, we believe in thee, 

A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart, 
But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see 
The naked eye, thy form, as it should be ; 

The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven, 
Even with its own desiring fantasy, 

And to a thought such shape and image given. 
As haunts the unquenched soul — parched — wearied— 
wrung — and riven. 

Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, 
And fevers into false creation : — -where. 

Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized ? 
In him alone. Can Nature show so fair ? 



16S 

Where are the charms ami virtues which we dare 
Conceive in boyhood and pur?!iie as men. 
The unreached Pamdise of our despair, 
Wliich o'er-intbrms the pencil and the pen, 
And overpowei-s the page where it would bloom again I 

Byron, 

PRAISE. 

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes iis value only 
to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulg-ar, 
and will no longer raise expectation, or auin\ate cuter- 
prise. It is here not only necessary, that wickedness, 
even when it is not safe to censure it, be denied applause, 
but thai goodness be commended only in proportion to 
its degree ; and that the gai'lands due to the gTcat bene- 
factors of mankind, be not sutVered to t'adc upon the brow 
of him who can boast only petty services and easy vir- 
tues. * * * The real satisfaction which praise can atlbrd 
is by repeating aloud the whispers of conscience, and by 
showing us that we have not endeavoured to deserve 
well in vain. Every other encomium is, to an intelli- 
gent mind, satire and reproach. Johnson. 



A BRIGHT EYE. 

Back she flung 

The locks that round her forehead hung. 

And turned her eye, a glorious one, 

Bright as a diatnond in the sun, 

On me, until beneath its rays 

I feh as if my hair would blaze ! 

0. TV. Holmes. 



169 



DRESS OF PORTRAITS. 

I HAVE heard it disputed, whether a portrait ought to 
be habited according to the fashion of the times, or in 
one of those dresses which, on account of their elegance, 
or having been long in use, are affected by great painters, 
and therefore called picturesque. The question may be 
determined upon the principles here laid down. If you 
wish to have a portrait of your friend that shall always 
be elegant, and never awkward, choose a picturesque 
dress. But if you mean to preserve the remembrance 
of a particular suit of clothes, without minding the ridi- 
culous figure which your friend will probably cut in it a 
hundred years hence, you may array his picture accord- 
ing to the fashion. The history of dresses may be worth 
preserving : but who would have his image set up, for 
the purpose of hanging a coat or periwig upon it, to 
gratify the curiosities of antiquarian tailors or wig- 
makers ? 

J. Beattie. 



SUNSET. 

The sun went down — and, broad and red, 

One moment, on the burning wave, 
Rested his front of fire, to shed 

A glory round his ocean-grave : 
And sunset — far and gorgeous hung 

A banner from the wall of heaven — 
A wave of living glory flung 

Along the shadowy verge of even. 

15 James C, Whittier. 



170 



UTILITY OF THE ARTS. 

The ancients were fully convinced of the salutary in- 
fluence of -those works which, to the ignorant and super- 
ficial observer, appear to be useless and expensive orna- 
ments. They knew that grandeur and magnificence, 
displayed in national objects, produced many of the 
advantages with few of the evils of luxury ; and not only 
called forth the powers, but excited the patriotism of a 
people. * * * While plainness and simplicity character- 
ized the manners and habitations of individuals, their 
public edifices were gorgeous and magnificent: their me- 
morials of public - virtue were splendid and inspiring; 
calculated to kindle the enthusiasm of the citizen, and 
suitable to the dignified gratitude of a great nation. * * * 
The productions of taste and genius were found to be 
not only powerful incentives to great actions, but prime 
agents of social and scientific improvement. Philosophy 
and feeling were alike interested to favour their advance- 
ment. « * * What a contrast to this picture do we find 
in the apathy and avarice of modern times ! * * -;te As a 
nation, we are as ignorant of the utility as we are insensible 
to the beauty of the Arts, and have neither the policy that 
promotes, nor the refinement that respects them. Unex- 
cited, unprotected, and unpraised ; without honour for 
dignity, or emolument for ease, they are left to struggle 
amid the contentions of common life ; and obliged to 
practise the mercenary maxims of a trade, without the 
security of its comforts or the consolation of its independ- 
ence. * * * The pursuits of politics and commerce, 
though highly important to our freedom and our wealth, 



171 

are but little favourable to that refinement which results 
from great sensibility of feeling and high intellectual cul- 
tivation. 

M. A. Shee. 



VISION OF LIBERTY. 

Bright with more than human grace, 
Robed in more than mortal seeming, 

Radiant glory in her face, 

And eyes with heaven's own brightness beaming ; 

Rose a fair majestic form, 

As the mild rainbow from the storm. 

I marked her smile, I knew her eye 

And when, with gesture of command, 

She waved aloft the cap-crowned wand. 
My slumbers fled 'mid shouts of Liberty. 

Henry Ware, Jr. 



UNFINISHED WORKS. 

It is very remarkable, that the last works of celebrated 
artists, which they left imperfect, are always the most 
prized, such as the Iris of Aristides, the Tyndarides of 
Nicomachus, the Medea of Timomachus, and the Venus 
of Apelles. These are valued even above their finished 
productions. The broken lineaments of the piece, and 
the half-formed idea of the painter, are carefully studied ; 
and our very grief for that curious hand, which had been 
stopped by death, is an additional increase to our pleasure. 

Pliny. 



172 



SCENES OF CHILDHOOD. 

Indulgent Memory wakes, and, lo ! they live ! 

Clothed with far softer hues than light can give. 

Thou last, best friend that Heaven assigns below, 

To soothe and sweeten all the cares we know ; 

Whose glad suggestions still each vain alarm, 

When nature fades, and life forgets to charm ; 

Thee would the muse invoke ! — to thee belong 

The sages' precept, and the poet's song. 

What softened views thy magic glass reveals. 

When o'er the landscape time's meek twilight steals ! 

As when in ocean sinks the orb of day, 

Long on the wave reflected lustres play ; 

Thy tempered gleams of happiness resigned 

Glance on the darkened mirror of the mind. 

Rogers. 



AGES OF MAN. 

It is a great folly to sadden the present, in looking 
back upon the past, as though it had been darkened by 
no shadow of a cloud. The sorrows which nature sends 
us in infancy resemble spring showers, the traces of 
which are effaced by a passing breeze. The pains and 
alarms of each age have been chiefly the work of man. 
* * * The beautiful age, for a frivolous being, is youth; 
for the ambitious, maturity ; for the recluse, old age ; for 
a reasonable man, every age : — Heaven has reserved pe- 
culiar pleasures for each. 

Droz. 



173 



CANOVA'S HELEN. 

In this beloved marble view, 

Above the works and thoughts of man, 
What nature could, but would not, do, 

And beauty and Canova can ! 
Beyond imagination's power. 

Beyond the bard's defeated art, 

With immortality her dower. 

Behold the Helen of the heart ! 

Byron. 



MUSIC AND PAINTING. 

As the eye is gratified with the blending of different 
colours, so is the ear regaled with the harmony of differ- 
ent sounds. The general aspect of the external world, 
and the wonderful construction of the organ of sight, 
show how admirably they are adapted to each other ; yet 
much is left to the ingenuity of man, that he may exer- 
cise his faculties in carrying on the same principle of 
intellectual enjoyment derived from nature, and diffusing 
it through the region of art. As relates to the eye, this 
is most effectually accomplished by painting ; as relates 
to the ear, by music. * * * Painting is generally con- 
sidered more intellectual than music, because it remains 
extant and tangible to criticism ; while music is more 
instantaneous, and more evanescent in its effect upon the 
feelings ; but they have both worked their way as an 
accompaniment in the progress of civilization and general 
refinement ; they have both occupied the lives of many 

15* 



174 

able men, requiring the exercise of much patience, and 
much intellect, to bring them to their present state of 
perfection : and they both aftord pleasure upon principles 
which form an important part of our nature, and are in- 
separable from it. 

5. Siichiey. 



MUSIC. 

Is there a heart that music cannot melt ? 

Alas ! how is that rugged heart forlorn ; 
Is there, who ne'er those mystic transports felt 

Of solitude and melancholy born ? 

He needs not woo the Muse ; he is her scorn. 
The sophist's rope of cobweb he shall twine ; 

Muse o'er the schoolman's peevish page ; or mourn, 
And delve for life in Mammon's dirt}^ mine ; 
Sneak with the scoundrel fox, or grunt with glutton swine. 

Dr. Beaftie. 



ASSOCIATION. 

As the fancy delights in every thing that is great, 
strange, or beautiful, and is still the more pleased the 
more it finds of these perfections in the same object, so 
it is capable of receiving new satisfaction by the assistance 
of another sense. Thus, any continual sound, as the 
music of birds, or a fall of waters, awakens every moment 
the mind of the beholder, and makes him more attentive 
to the several beauties of the place that lie before him. 
Thus, if there arises a fragrancy of smells, or perfumes, 
they heighten the pleasure of the imagination, and make 



175 

even the colours and verdure of the landscape appear 

more agreeable ; for the ideas of both senses recommend 

each other, and are pleasanter together than where they 

enter the mind separately : as the different colours of a 

picture, when they are well disposed, set off one another, 

and receive an additional beauty from the advantage of 

the situation. 

Addison. 



TRUE PIETY. 

Artist, attend — your brushes and your paint — 

Produce them — take a chair — now draw a saint. 

O sorrowful and sad ! the streaming tears 

Channel her cheeks — A Niobe appears ! 

Is this a saint ? Throw tints and all away — 

True piety is cheerful as the day, 

Will weep indeed, and heave a pitying groan 

For others' woes, but smiles upon her own. 

Cowper. 



SIR T. LAWRENCE. 

Who, ever on the brink 
Of beauty, watched its many-changing hue. 
And caught the best expression as it flew : 
Who wreathed the richest form with richer grace ; 
Still lavishing, where nature had done much. 
The needless charm, the o'er-exalting touch, 
Of his own genius. It was his to trace 
The proudest and the loveliest of a land 
Most blest in beauty, with a liberal hand ; 



176 

Crowning the broAV, that seemed already bright, 
With flowers unfading and with golden light, — 
Yet loving, too, * * * * 

The silent spell wrought in the heart by thee, 
O ! bright, but vanished nymph, simplicity ! 

The Amulet. 



OBSCURITY. 

Painting, when we have allowed for the pleasure of 
imitation, can only affect simply by the images it presents ; 
and even in painting, a judicious obscurity in some things 
contributes to the eifect of the picture ; because the 
images in painting are exactly similar to those in na- 
ture : and in nature, dark, confused, uncertain images 
have a greater power on the fancy to form the grander 
passions, than those have v^hich are more clear and de- 
terminate. 

Locke. 



EVENING. 

It is the hour when from the boughs 

The nightingale's high note is heard; 
It is the hour when lovers' vows 

Seem sweet in every whispered word ; 
And gentle winds, and waters near. 
Make music to the lonely ear. 
Each flower the dews have lightly wet. 
And in the sky the stars are met. 
And on the wave is deeper blue. 
And on the leaf a browner hue. 



177 

And in the heavens that clear obscure, 
So softly dark, and darkly pure, 
Which follows the decline of day. 
As twilight melts beneath the moon away. 

Byron. 

IDEALITY. 

Ideality delights in perfection from the pure pleasure 
of contemplating it. So far as it is concerned, the pic- 
ture, the statue, the landscape, or the mansion on which 
it abides with the intensest rapture, is as pleasing, al- 
though the property of another, as if all its own. It is 
^ spring that is touched by the beautiful wherever it 
exists ; and hence its means of enjoyment are as un- 
bounded as the universe. ^ ^ ^ 

Not only is external nature invested with the most 
exquisite loveliness, but a capacity for moral and intel- 
lectual refinement is given to us, by which we may rise 
in the scale of excellence, arid at every step of our pro- 
gress, reap direct enjoyment from this sentiment. Its 
constant desire is for " something more exquisite still." 
In its own immediate impulses it is delightful, and ex- 
ternal nature and our own faculties respond to its call. 

G. Combe. 



MEMORY OF SUFFERING. 

Time's sombrous touches soon correct the piece, 
Mellow each tint, and bid each discord cease ; 
A softer tone of light pervades the whole, 
And breathes a pensive languor o'er the soul. 

Rogers. 



178 



ADVANTAGES OF TRAVEL. 

O ! THAT oiir gouty aristocrats and punchy aldermen 

would just travel from Naples to London in twenty-six 

days, as I did, in the open air, including seven days of 

laborious rest at Rome, Florence, Pisa, and Genoa ! 

Their fat would turn into muscle — their muscle into 

sinews — their sinews into bones — and their bones into 

iron ! They would hardly know themselves at the end 

of such a journey, if they looked at their portraits on the 

walls of their chambers"— and their friends would be 

startled at the metamorphosis. 

Dr. J. Armstrong. 



ITALY. 

Italy, how beautiful thou art ! 

Yet I could weep< — for thou art lying, alas. 

Low in the dust ; and we admire thee now 

As we admire the beautiful in death. 

Rogers. 



DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 

The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to 
those hours which splendour cannot gild, and acclama- 
tion cannot exhilarate ; those soft intervals of unbended 
amusement, in which a man shrinks to his natural dimen- 
sions, and throws aside the ornaments or disguises which 
he feels, in privacy, to be useful encumbrances, and to 
lose all effect when they become familiar. To be happy 



179 

at home is the ultimate result of all ambition ; the end to 

which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which 

every desire prompts the prosecution. It is, indeed, at 

home that every man must be known, by those who 

would make a just estimate of his virtue or felicity ; for 

smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind 

is often dressed for show in painted honour and fictitious 

benevolence. 

Johnson. 



RELIGION. 

Religion does not censure or exclude 

Unnumbered pleasures harmlessly pursued ; 

To study culture, and with artful toil 

To meliorate and tame the stubborn soil ; 

To give dissimilar yet fruitful lands 

The grain, or herb, or plant that each demands ; 

To cherish virtue in an humble state. 

And share the joys your bounty may create ; 

To mark the matchless workings of the power 

That shuts within its seed the future flower ; 

Bids these in elegance of form excel, 

In colour these, and those delight the smell ; 

Send nature forth, the daughter of the skies. 

To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes ; 

To teach the canvass innocent deceit, 

Or lay the landscape on the snowy sheet — 

These, these are arts pursued without a crime ; 

That leave no stain upon the wing of time. 

Cowper, 



180 



REFINEMENT. 

In following the history of mankind, we observe, that, 
in proportion as nations cultivate their moral and intel- 
lectual powers, atrocious actions diminish in number; 
the manners and pleasures become more refined, the legis- 
lation milder, the religion purified from superstition, and 
the arts address themselves to the finer emotions of the 

mind. 

Spurzheim. 



VENUS DE MEDICIS. 

There, too, the goddess lives in stone, and fills 
The air around with beauty ; we inhale 

The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils 
Part of its immortality ; the veil 
Of heaven is half undrawn ; within the pale 

We stand, and in that form and face behold 

What mind can make, when Nature's self would 
fail ; 

And to the fond idolaters of old 
Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould. 

We gaze and turn away, and know not where, 
Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart 

Reels with its fulness ; there — for ever there — 
Chained to the chariot of triumphant Art, 
We stand as captives, and would not depart. 

Bt/ron, 



181 



POET AND ARTIST. 

They stood together — one a Poet, full 
Of noble fancy, and of glowing thought ; 

Whose soul responded to the beautiful. 

Whose heart with love and tenderness was fraught ; 

Imagination's child ! upon whose head 

The wreath of mighty minstrelsy was shed. 

They stood together — he, the son of song, 

Beside another proudly gifted one, 
Whose mighty art could skilfully prolong 

The dreams of grace and beauty — who had known 
Nature in her most glorious works ; and wrought 
Bright shapes engendered by his lofty thought. 

Miss Pardoe. 



PORTRAIT OF CHRIST. 

There appeared in these our days a man of great vir- 
tue, named Jesus Christ, who is yet living among us, 
and of the gentiles is accepted for a prophet of truth, but 
his own disciples call him the Son of God. He raiseth 
the dead, and cureth all manner of disease. A man of 
stature somewhat tall and comely, with very reverend 
countenance, such as the beholders may both love and 
fear. His hair of the colour of a chestnut full ripe, plain 
to his ears, whence downward is more orient, curling 
and waving about his shoulders. In the midst of his head 
is a seam, or partition of his hair, after the manner of the 
Nazarites ; his forehead plain and very delicate ; his face 

16 



182 

without spot or wrinkle, beautified with a lovely red ; 
his nose and mouth so formed as nothing can be repre- 
hended — his beard thickish, in colour like his hair, not 
very long but pointed — ^his look innocent and mature ; 
his eyes gray, clear, and quick. In reproving, he is terri- 
ble — in admonishing, courteous and fair-spoken ; pleasant 
in conversation, mixed with gravity. It cannot be re- 
membered that any have seen him smile — but many have 
seen him weep. In proportion of body most excellent. 
His hands and arms most delectable to behold. In speak- 
ing, very temperate, modest, and wise. A man, for his 
singular beauty, surpassing the children of men. 

Publlus Lentultis.* 



THE PAINTER'S LIGHT.f 

Poets, too often flatterers of the fair. 

Their sparkling eyes with glittering stars compare, 

Without reflecting, that the stars are bright 

Only in contrast with the shades of night : 

But, 'tis not flattery, if the Painter view 

In thy fair face two orbs of softened blue ; 

And only in each orb, gleaming afar 

Beneath its shadowy fringe, a brilliant star ! 

It is in truth, for truth alone I prize. 

The painter's light reflected from thine eyes. 

R.P. 

* In a letter to the Senate of Rome. — Josephus. 

t Addressed to a lady sitting for her portrait. The white speck on 
the eye by which painters express its brilliance, if minutely examined 
on the real eye, is found to resemble the window which is reflected 
from its glossy convex surface. 



183 



VIVACITY. 



No person can be perfectly agreeable without a por- 
tion of wit and vivacity : but that perspicacity which is 
employed in discovering and exposing the foibles of 
others, particularly of those with whom we live in habits 
of intimacy, is but another name for treachery and ill- 
nature ; and vivacity, unaccompanied by tenderness and 
delicacy, is like the picture of a gaudy landscape, emi- 
nent only for its brilliant colouring. We turn away 
from it in disgust, when our eyes are attracted by the 
labours of another artist, whose tints, if less vivid, are 
more delicate, though he has employed his skill only in 
portraying Poverty at the door of Contentment, or In- 
nocence reposing on a bank. 

J. E. H. 



COLOURS THAT FADE. 

So when the faithful pencil has designed 

Some bright idea of the master's mind, 

Where a new world leaps out at his command, 

And ready nature waits upon his hand ; 

When the ripe colours soften and unite. 

And sweetly melt into just shade and light ; 

When mellowing years their full perfection give. 

And each bold figure just begins to live ; 

The treacherous colours the fair art betray, 

And all the bright creation fades away ! 

Pope. 



184 



BEAUTY OF TRUTH. 



After all, the most natural beauty in the world is 
honesty and moral truth. For all beauty is truth. True 
features make the beauty of a face ; and true proportions 
the beauty of architecture ; as true measures that of har- 
mony and music. In poetry, which is all fable, truth 

still is the perfection. 

Shaftesbury. 



THE ORPHAN. 

An orphan with my parents lived, whose eyes 
Were load-stars of delight, which drew me home 
When I might wander forth ; nor did I prize 
Aught human thing beneath heaven's mighty dome 
Beyond this child. -» * * * 

* * A child most infantine. 
Yet wandering far beyond that innocent age 
In all but its sweet looks and mien divine. 

* * * * * vis- 
She moved upon this earth a shape of brightness, 
A power, that from its objects scarcely drew 
One impulse of her being — in her lightness 
Most like some radiant cloud of morning dew, 
Which wanders through the waste air's pathless blue. 
To nourish some far desert; she did seem 

Beside me, gathering beauty as she grew, 
Like the bright shade of some immortal dream 
Which walks, when tempest sleeps, the wave of life's 
dark stream. 



185 

As mine own shadow was this child to me, 
A second self, far dearer and more fair. 

* « *- She was all I had 
To love in human life — this playmate sweet. 
This child af twelve years old— so she was made 
My sole associate, and her willing feet 
Wandered with mine where earth and ocean meet. 
Beyond the aerial mountains whose vast cells 
The unreposing billows ever beat. 

Through forests wide and old, and lawny dells — 

* * * ;^ iff ■* 

And warm and light I felt her clasping hand 
When twined in mine : she followed where I went, 
Through the lone paths of our immortal land. 

* * * -*• . « * 
And Avhen the pauses of the lulling air 

Of noon beside the sea had made a lair 

For her soothed senses, in my arms she slept, 

And I kept watch over her slumbers there, 

While, as the shifting visions o'er her swept, 

Amid her innocent rest by turns she smiled and wept. 

* * * •» -^ * 

* * * * * Suddenly 
She would arise, and like the secret bird 

Whom sunset wakens, fill the shore and sky 
With her sweet accents — a wild melody ! 

* * * * * -* 

Triumphant strains, which, like a spirit's tongue. 

To the enchanted waves that child of glory sung, 

Her white arms lifted through the shadowy stream 

Of her loose hair. 

Shelley. 

16* 



186 



PERSON AND CHARACTER. 

O, IF the money and the pains that Ave bestow upon 
perfumes and adornments of the body, were applied to 
the purification of the mind ! O, if we were as careful 
to polish our maimers as our teeth ; to make our temper 
as sweet as our breath ; to cut off our peccadilloes as to 
pare our nails ; to be as upright in character as in per- 
son ; to save our souls as to shave our chins, — what an 

immaculate race we should become ! 

Dr. Chatfidd. 



INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 

\ TiRiT of Beauty, that dost consecrate 
'^■*' With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon 
Of human thought or form, where art thou gone ? 
Why dost thou pass away, and leave our state. 
This dim, vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate ? 
Ask why the' sunlight not for ever 
Weaves rainboAvs o'er yon mountain river ; 
Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown ; 
Why fear, and dream, and death, and birth 
Cast on the daylight of this earth 
Such gloom ; why man has such a scope 
For love and hate, despondency and hope ? 

Love, hope, and self-esteem, like clouds, depart 
And come, for some uncertain moments lent. 
Man were immortal, and omnipotent. 



187 

Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, 

Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. 

Thou messenger of sympathies 

That wax and wane in lovers' eyes ; 
Thou, that to human thought art nourishment 

Like darkness to a dying flame ! 

Depart not as thy shadow came : 

Depart not, lest the grave should be, 

Like life and fear, a dark reality. 

Shelley. 



WOMAN. 

As the vine, which has long twined its graceful . "'^ge 
about the oak, and been lifted by it into sunshine, ', 
when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, ci ; 
round it with its caressing tendrils, and bind up ,.. 
shattered boughs t so is it beautifully ordained by Pro- 
vidence, that woman, who is the mere dependant and or- 
nament of man in his happier hours, should be his stay 
and solace when smitten with sudden calamity ; winding 
herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly 
supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken 

heart. 

W. Irving. 



ORNAMENTS. 

Some to conceit alone their taste confine, 

And glittering thoughts struck out at every line ; 

Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit ; 



188 

Poets, like painters, thus, unskilled to trace 

The naked nature and the living grace, 

With gold and jewels cover every part, 

And hide with ornaments their want of art. 

True wit is nature to advantage dressed, 

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed ; 

Something, whose truth convinced at sight we find, 

That gives us back the image of our mind. 

As shades more sweetly recommend the light, 

So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit. 

Pope. 



SIMPLICITY. 

It is with books as with women ; where a certain 
plainness of manner and of dress is more engaging, than 
that glare of paint and airs and apparel, which may daz- 
zle the eye, but reaches not the affections. 

Hume. 



GRAVE OF AMBITION. 

Here the mighty troublers of the earth, 

Who swam to sovereign rule through seas of blood : 

The oppressive, sturdy, man-destroying villains, 

Who ravaged kingdoms, and laid empires waste. 

And in a cruel wantonness of pov/er, 

Thinned states of half their people, and gave up 

To want the rest ; now, like a storm that's spent. 

Lie hushed, and meanly sneak behind thy covert. 

Blair. 



189 



ROME. 



O Rome ! my country ! city of the soul [ 

The orphan of the heart must turn to thee, 
Lone mother of dead empires ! and control 

In their shut breasts their petty misery. 

What are our woes and sufferance ? come and see 
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way 

O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye ! 
Whose agonies are evils of a day — 
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. 

The Niobe of nations ! there she stands 

Childless and crownless, in her voiceless wo— 
-» * * * * * 

The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, 

Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride ; 
She saw her glories star by star expire, 

And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, 
Where the car climbed the capitol ; far and wide 

Temple and tower went down, nor left a site : — 
Chaos of ruins ! * * * * 

* * * * * * 

She who was named Eternal, and arrayed 
Her warriors but to conquer — she who veiled 

Earth with her haughty shadow, and displayed. 
Until the o'er-canopied horizon failed. 
Her rushing wings — ! she who was Almighty hailed ! 

Byron. 



190 



EMILIA. 



There is nothing which gives one so pleasing a pros- 
pect of human nature, as the contemplation of wisdom 
and beauty : the latter is the peculiar portion of that sex 
which is therefore called fair : but the happy concurrence 
of both these excellencies in the same person is a cha- 
racter too celestial to be often met with. Beauty is an 
overweening, self-sufficient thing, careless of providing 
itself any more substantial ornaments ; nay, so little does 
it consult its own interests, that it too often defeats itself, 
by betraying that innocence which renders it lovely and 
desirable. As therefore virtue makes a beautiful woman 
appear more beautiful, so beauty makes a virtuous wo- 
man really more virtuous. * * * Who ever beheld the 
charming Emilia without feeling in his breast at once 
the glow of love, and the tenderness of virtuous friend- 
ship ? * * * That sweetness and good-humour, which is 
so visible in her face, naturally diffuses itself into every 
word and action : a man must be a savage, who, at the 
sight of Emilia, is not more inclined to do her good 
than gratify himself. Her person as it is thus studiously 
embellished by nature, thus adorned with unpremeditated 
graces, is a fit lodging for a mind so fair and lovely : 
there dwell rational piety, modest hope, and cheerful 
resignation. 

* * * * * * 

Ye guardian angels, to whose care Heaven has intrust- 
ed its dear Emilia, guide her still forward in the paths 
of virtue ; defend her from the insolence and wrongs of 
this undiscerning world: at length, when we must no 



191 



more converse with such purity on earth, lead her gently 
hence, innocent and unreprovable, to a better place, 
where, by an easy transition from what she now is, she 
may shine forth an angel of light. 



Dr. Brome. 



JOHN P. KEMBLE. 

His was the spell o'er hearts 

Which only acting lends — 
The youngest of the sister Arts, 

Where all their beauty blends : 
For ill can poetry express 

Full many a tone of thought sublime ; 
And Painting, mute and motionless. 

Steals but a glance of time : 
But, by the mighty actor brought. 

Illusion's perfect triumphs come, — 

Verse ceases to be airy thought, 

And sculpture to be dumb. 

T. Campbell. 



SCULPTURE — EDUCATION. 

I CONSIDER a human soul without education like marble 
in the quarry, which shows none of its inherent beauties, 
until the skill of the polisher fetches out the colours, 
makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental 
cloud, spot, and vein that runs through the body of it. 
Education, after the same manner, when it works upon a 
noble mind, draws out to view every latent virtue and 



192 

perfection, which, without such helps, are never able to 
make their appearance. 

If my reader will give me leave to change the allusion 
so soon upon him, I shall make use of the same instance 
to illustrate the force of education, which Aristotle has 
brought to explain his doctrine of substantial forms, when 
he tells us that a statue lies hid in a block of marble ; 
and that the art of the statuary only clears away the 
superfluous matter, and rernoves the rubbish. The figure 
is in the stone, the sculptor only finds it. What sculp- 
ture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. 
The philosopher, the saint, or the hero, the wise, the 
good, or the great man, very often lie hid and concealed 
in a plebeian, which a proper education might have 

brought to light. 

Addison, 



WILLIAM PEN N. 

The Quaker stood under his smooth broad brim, 
In the plain drab suit that, simple and trim, 
Was better than royal robe to him 

Who looked to the inward part ; 
Foregoing the wealth and honours of earth. 
And emptied his breast of the praise of birth. 
To seek the treasures of matchless worth. 

Reserved for the pure of heart. 

* * * * ;-j * 

And bright was the spot where the Quaker came, 
To leave it his hat, his drab, and his name, 
That will sweetly sound from the trump of Fame 
Till its final blast will die. 



193 

The city he reared from the sylvan shade,* 

His beautiful monument now is made ; 

And long have the rivers their pride displayed 

In the scenes they are rolling by. 

Miss Gould. 

EMPLOYMENTS OF THE PENCIL. 

To preserve to future times the image of him who has 
been the guardian, or the benefactor of his country ; to 
re-act, as it were, for the delight and instruction of pos- 
terity, those heroic deeds by which valour and virtue 
have established her felicity and brightened her renown ; 
to impress upon the rising generation, those examples of 
magnanimity, which may kindle the fire of enthusiasm, 
and make them 

" Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold;" 

those are the only occupations of the painter, by which 
he can hope to rise to the exalted level of his subject, 
and take his place in the temple of immortality, amongst 
those great characters which he has celebrated. 

M. A. Shee. 

MAN. 

His entrance on life is naked and bare ; 

His progress throughout is labour and care ; 

His exit therefrom is — the Lord knows where ; 

But still, to save us from gloomy despair. 

If we do well here, we shall do well there — 

I could tell you no more if I preach a whole year. 

Dr. Franklin, 
* Philadelphia. 

17 



194 



THE PORTRAIT. 

Ah ! let me look upon thy face, 
Fling back thy clustering hair ; 

It is a happiness to gaze 
On any thing so fair. 

'Tis such spring-morning loveliness, 

The blushing and the bright, 
Beneath whose sway, unconsciously, 

The heaviest heart grows light. 

The crimson, flushing up the rose. 
When some fresh wind has past. 

Parting the boughs — just such a hue 
Upon thy cheek is cast. 

Thy golden curls, where sunshine dwells 

As in a summer home ; 
The brow, whose snow is pure and white 

As that of ocean foam. 

For grief has thrown no shadow there. 

And worldliness no stain ; 
It is as only flowers could grow 

In such a charmed domain. 

I would thy fate were in my hands ; 

I'd bid it but allow 
Thy future to be like thy past, 

And keep thee just as now. 



L. E. Landon. 



195 



BEAUTY AND GOODNESS. 

Behold, you who dare, that charming virgin ; behold 
the beauty of her person chastised by the innocence of 
her thoughts. Chastity, good-nature, and affability are 
the graces that play in her countenance ; she knows she 
is handsome, but she knows she is good. Conscious beauty 
adorned with conscious virtue ! What a spirit is there in 
those eyes ! What a bloom in that person ! How is the 
whole woman expressed in her appearance ! Her air 
has the beauty of motion, and her look the force of lan- 
guage. * * * It was prudence to turn away my eyes 
from this object, and therefore I turned them to the 
thoughtless creatures who make up the lump of that sex, 
and move a knowing eye no more than the portraiture of 
insignificant people by ordinary painters, which are but 

pictures of pictures. 

Steele. 

OLD AGE. 

I SAW an aged man upon his bier, — 

His hair was thin and white, and on his brow 
A record of the cares of many a year ; — 

Cares, that were ended and forgotten now. 
And there was sadness round, and faces bowed. 
And woman's tears fell fast, and children wailed aloud. 

* ■* * * * * 

His youth was innocent ; his riper age. 

Marked with some act of goodness, every day; 
And watched by eyes that loved him, calm and sage. 

Faded his late declining years away. 



196 

Cheerful he gave his being up, and went 

To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent. 

i^ -;^ * * * 

And I am glad that he has lived thus long, 
And glad that he has gone to his reward ; 

Nor deem that kindly nature did him wrong. 
Softly to disengage the vital cord. 

When his M^eak hand gi-ew palsied, and his eye 

Dark with the mists of age, it was his time to die. 

Bryant. 



SUN OF ART. 

PRIDE of culture, rare achieved, and hite. 

High finished grace of an accomplished state ! 

Ye nobler arts ! as life's last lustre given, 

Gilding earth's grossness with the gloss of heaven ! 

'Tis yours to crown complete the social plan, 

And harmonize the elements of man ; 

To raise in generous breasts a glow divine. 

And polish every gem of virtue's mine. 

As when, long shut in shades, the eye of day 

Shoots from his lids of cloud a sudden ray, 

Swift o'er the sombre scene effulgent flies 

The golden gleam, and skims across the skies. 

Flames up the mountain, flashes on the main. 

Till one broad glory bursts upon the plain ; 

Thus, lowering life the liberal arts illume. 

Adorn its prospects, and dispel its gloom ; 

Chase passion's scowling tempests from the scene. 

And o'er the mind's horizon shine serene. 

M. A. Shee. 



197 



MORAL INFLUENCE. 



The fine arts are to be regarded not so much with re- 
ference to the artist or the amateur, but as they deservedly 
recommend themselves to the notice of the patriot and 
the philanthropist ; as they are fitted to add to the comforts 
and multiply the innocent enjoyments of life; to adorn 
and dignify the aspect of society ; to give impulse and 
exercise to the latent talent, and fresh lustre to the glories 
of our nation ; and, by their moral influence upon all 
classes, to animate patriotism, to refine the manners, and 

elevate the character. 

Verplanck. 



REMINISCENCE. 

The starlight smile of children ; the sweet looks 
Of women ; the fair breast from which I fed ; 
The murmur of the unreposing brooks ; 
And the green light which, shifting overhead, 
Some tangled bower of vines around me shed ; 
The shells on the sea-sand ; and the wild flowers ; 
The lamplight through the rafters cheerly spread, 
And on the twining flax — in life's young hours : 
These sights and sounds did muse my spirit's folded 

powers. 

* * * * * * 

Such impulses within my mortal frame 

Arose, and they were dear to memory, 

Like tokens of the dead. 

Shelley, 

17* 



198 



INFLUENCE OF THE ARTS. 

Whatever may be the power or prosperity of a state, 
whatever the accumulations of her wealth, or the splen- 
dour of her triumphs, to her intellectual attainments must 
she look for rational estimation ; on her arts must she 
depend 

" For living dignity, and deathless fame." 
* * * * * * 

Their influence has been acknowledged in all ages ; and 
their interests have been protected in all countries, in 
proportion as man became more enlightened, and the 
principles of society have been better understood. * * * 
The present and the future are alike within the grasp of 
their power : they humanize the tempers of the living, 
and they perpetuate the memory of the dead. They are 
the crystals of immortality, in which all the forms of 
greatness are imperishably fixed to gratify the wondering 

eye of Time. 

M. A. Shee. 



CLIMATE OF GENIUS. 

On wings of fire sustained, the immortal mind. 
Nor clime controls, nor fog nor frost can bind. 
Where freedom, man's most cheering sunshine, glows. 
Whether on Libyan sands, or Zemblan snows ; 
Where life exults with each bold feeling fraught, 
And Fancy, fearless, springs the mine of Thought : 
There blooms the soul, there every muse delights, 
SavcIIs her full strain, and soars her highest flights. 

M. A. Shee. 



199 



PUBLIC TASTE. 



In literature, the public taste is commonly directed by 
persons Avho have some pretensions to be heard upon 
the subject : they are almost always professors or pro- 
ficients in the art of which they speak ; and often, in 
their poAvers of performance, vindicate their right to 
judge. The poet, the historian, and the philosopher 
are generally tried by their peers ; who, although they 
may be sometimes tainted with the jealousy of competi- 
tion, must, at least, be acknowledged to understand the 
case, and to have a common interest in the establishment 
of sound principles and pure taste. But in the Arts, 
every man is a critic except the Artist, and any man 
may come forward to direct the public judgment, except 
him who is tho best qualified for that office. The poet 
may scrutinize and contest the claims of his contempo- 
raries : * * * but the painter is expected to be all meek- 
ness and submission ; to preserve his character for can- 
dour, he must cry bravo ! to every blockhead in liis pro- 
fession, and behold the quack and the coxcomb puffed 
into pre-eminence, without a murmur of disapprobation 
or discontent. * * * * 

In matters of taste, the public is a child that must be 
instructed by precept as well as example. Taste is 
something like chess ; we cannot become proficients by 
looking on : the principles of the game must be explained, 
or the best play is lost upon the spectator. * * * If the 
public taste is more enlightened in poetry than in paint- 
ing, it is because in the one poets have performed the 
duty of critics, and in the other critics have performed the 



200 

duty of painters. * ■>^ « Every scribbler who can get 
possession of the critical corner in a newspaper, or a 
magazine, draws his redoubtable pen npon the painters ; 
lays down the law with ludicrous absurdity, and delivers 
his decisions with ridiculous arrogance. * * * The public 
read their effusions without respect, but also without 
knowledge : they are therefore impressed by their con- 
fidence, because they do not perceive their presumption. 
* * * Thus are the best interests of the Artist and the 
Art sacrificed to the capricious or corrupt motives of 
those who neither study nor understand them. 

M. A. Shee. 



OBSCURITY. 

'Tis wisely done : 
What w^ould offend the eye in a good picture. 
The painter casts discreetly into shade. 

Blair. 



THE HEAD. 

The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well 
as the highest station in a human figure. Nature has 
laid out all her art in beautifying the face ; she has 
touched it with vermilion, planted in it a double row of 
ivory, made it the seat of smiles and blushes, lighted 
it up and enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes, 
hung it on each side with curious organs of sense, given 
it airs and graces that cannot be xlescribed, and surrounded 
it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties 
in the most aofreeable lioht. In short, slie seems to have 



201 

designed the head as the cupola to the most glorious of 
her works ; and when we load it with a pile of super- 
numerary ornaments, we destroy the symmetry of the hu- 
man figure, and foolishly contrive to call off the eye from 
great and real beauties, to childish gewgaws, ribands, and 

bone lace. 

Addison. 



MOMENTS OF BLISS. 

'Tis not the contour of her form, or face ; 
The hue, the soft cerulean of her eyes ; 
Nor yet the youthful grace of her light step, 
Free as the fawn's upon the hill at morn : 
There are, whose more surpassing loveliness 
Might win from her the worship of the world. 
But, when I look upon her innocent features. 
And trace the currents of the eloquent blood. 
Speaking the thoughts that crowd her artless mind- 
I do forget myself in the sweet theme ; 
And wayward fancy fashions her as one 
Lovely as angel-forms that poets dream of, 
Feigning their Eden-songs. 

^ Jit * * * * 

There is a kind and placid temper writ 
Upon her brow, type of the soul within. 
How dotingly I dwell upon those looks, 
That brighten on my heart, amid life's cares. 
Like sunbeams to the wave-tossed mariner 
Desolate, on a sea of storms ! And then 
The bird-like melody of her low voice. 
Breathing the accents of a love untaught. 



202 

Or blending in harmonious cadences ! 
Blest sounds, that may be in an after year 
An unforgotten music to the heart ! 

v^ * * * * ■* 

But when at eve my laden brow she presses 

To her pure lip, and with endearment sweet 

Twining her slight and delicate arms around me, 

Seeks to beguile my very weariness. 

And cheat me of a smile — I lose all sense 

Of sorrow, and my eyes are filled for joy ; 

It is an ecstasy that hath no words. 

* * * * My heart is full. 

To overflowing, of delicious dreamings — 

She is my daughter ! 

P. M. Wetmore. 



VARIETY. 

The intellectual as well as the physical appetite re 

quires variety, and however refined by delicacies, will 

sometimes have a relish for homely fare. The mind 

cannot always feed upon the epics of poetry and art. 

He that has followed with rapture the flight of the eagle, 

will at length turn his eye to the ground, and be pleased 

with the flutterers of the hedge. From the sublimities 

of Homer and Michael Angelo, it may not be unpleasant 

to unbend a little with the humour of Horace and Hogarth; 

and the seriousness of history, and the severities of 

science, will often be agreeably relieved in the ridicule 

of comedy and the delusions of romance. 

M. A. Skee. 



203 



RAPHAEL. 

'TwAS his, to choose the nobler end of art, 
And charm the eye, subservient to the heart ; 
To strike the chords of sentiment — to trace 
The form of dignity — the flow of grace ; 
The passions' protean empire to control. 
And wield expression's sceptre o'er the soul. 
Whate'er of life he touched, of youth or age. 
The pious saint, or philosophic sage ; 
Whether, impressive in the bold design. 
The rapt apostle pour the word divine ; 
Or bright, on Tabor's summit, to the skies, 
The God, in full transfigured glory, rise ; 
Whate'er the cast of character, his hand 
Had all the moulds of genius at command. 
To nature true, could each strong trait impart. 
And stamp with taste the sterling ore of Art. 

M. A. Shee. 



TASTE— GENIUS, 

Taste and genius cannot but be favourable to virtue. 
They cannot exist conjointly without sensibility. * * * 
The lovely, the graceful, the elegant, the novel, the 
wonderful, the sublime — these are the food on which 
they banquet ; the grandeur and magnificence of the hea- 
vens — the terrible majesty of the tempestuous ocean — 
the romantic wildness of forests, and precipices, and 
mountains that lose themselves in the clouds — the sweet 
tranquillity of a summer evening — the rural gayety of 



204 

vineyards, hop-grounds, and corn-fields — the cheerful hum 
of busy cities — the stillness of village solitude — the magic 
face of human beauty — the tear of distressed innocence — 
the noble struggle of worth with poverty, of patriotism 
with usurpation, of piety Avith persecution ; — these, and 
innumerable images like these — tender, touching, digni- 
fied — are the subjects for which they fondly hunt, the 
themes on which they daily expatiate. To say nothing 
of the higher banqueting, " the food of angels," that 

religion sets before them. 

J. M. Good. 



EXHIBITION-CRITICS. 

With a connoisseur look, and a connoisseur glass, 

From picture to picture in censure they pass ; — 

That curtain's too red, or, that sky is too blue ; 

Or, the distance or keeping is wrong in that view. 

* * * * * * 

For all think the pleasure in seeing the sight, 

Is to find it all wrong, and to set it all right. 

Ano7i. 



MUSIC — PAINTING — SCULPTURE. 

The pleasure, the illusions produced by Music, when 
it is the voice of poetry, is, for the moment, by far the 
most complete and intoxicating, but also the most tran- 
sient. Painting, with its lovely colours blending into 
life, and ail its " silent poesy of form," is a source of 
pleasure more lasting, more intellectual. Beyond both 
is Sculpture, the noblest, the least illusive, the most en- 



205 

during of the imitative arts, because it charms us, not by 
what it seems to be, but by what it is ; because if the 
pleasure it imparts be less exciting, the impression it 
leaves is more profound and permanent ; because it is, 
or ought to be the abstract idea of power, beauty, senti- 
ment, made visible in the cold, pure, impressive, and 

almost eternal marble. 

Mrs. Jameson. 



PICTURE OF LIFE. 

Still where rosy pleasure leads, 

See a kindred grief pursue : 
Behind the steps which misery treads, 

Approaching comfort view. 

The hues of bliss more brightly glow, 

Chastised by sabler tints of wo ; 

And, blended, forms with artful strife. 

The strength and harmony of life. 

Gray. 



SCENERY. 

The pine, the oak, and the elm, may be magnificent 
in themselves— the willow, the heath, and the ivy may 
each present a picture to the imagination ; but what are 
these, considered separately, compared with the ever- 
varying combinations of form and colour, majesty and 
grace, presented by the forest, or the woodland, the 
sloping banks of the river, or the leafy dell, where the 
round and the massive figures are broken by the spiral 
stem, or the feathery foliage that trembles in the passing 

18 



206 

gale — where the hues that are most vivid, or most deli- 
cate, stand forth in clear contrast from the depths of 
sombre shade — where every projecting rock and rugged 
cleft is fringed with a curtain of green tracery, and every 
glassy stream reflects again, in its stainless mirror, the 
variety and the magnificence of the surrounding groves. 

S. Stickney. 



THE CREATION. 

He spake, and it was done ; eternal night, 

At God's command, awakened into light ; 

He called the elements, earth, ocean, air ; 

He called them when they were not, and they were : 

He looked through space, and kindling o'er the sky, 

Sun, moon, and stars, came forth to meet his eye : 

His Spirit moved upon the desert earth, 

And sudden life through all things swarmed to birth ; 

Man from the dust he raised to rule the whole ; 

He breathed, and man became a living soul : 

Through Eden's groves the lord of nature trod, 

Upright and pure, the image of his God. 

Thus were the heavens and all their host displayed, 

In wisdom thus were earth's foundations laid ; 

The glorious scene a holy sabbath closed, 

Amidst his works the Omnipotent reposed : ^ 

And while he viewed, and blest them from his seat, 

All worlds, all beings worshipped at his feet : 

Tlie morning stars in choral concert sang. 

The rolling deep with hallelujahs rang, 

Adoring angels from their orbs rejoice ; 

The voice of music was creation's voice 

Montgomery. 



207 



CONVERSATION. 

Thou bliss of life, and balm of care! 

^ * * * * 

Soft polisher of rugged man ! 

Refiner of the social plan ! 

For thee, best solace of his toil, 

The sage consumes his midnight oil ! 

And keeps late vigils, to produce 

Materials for thy future use : 

Calls forth the else neglected knowledge 

Of school, of travel, and of college. 

If none behold, ah ! wherefore fair ? 

Ah ! wherefore wise, if none must hear ? 

Our intellectual ore must shine, 

Not slumber, idly, in the mine. 

Let education's moral mint 

The noblest images imprint ; 

Let taste her curious touchstone hold, 

To try if standard be the gold ; 

But 'tis thy commerce. Conversation, 

Must give it use by circulation : 

That noblest commerce of mankind, 

Whose precious merchandise is mind ! 



H. More. 



PAINTERS. 

Their works are at once their actions and their his- 
tory, and a record of the taste and feelings of the times 

in which they flourished. 

A. Cunningham. 



208 



IMPRESSIONS. 



To carry on the feelings of childhood into the powers 
of manhood ; to combine the child's sense of wonder and 
novelty with the appearances which every day, for per- 
haps forty years, had rendered familiar ; 

" With sun, and moon, and stars, throughout the year. 
And man, and woman ; — '* 

this is the character and privilege of genius, and one of 
the marks which distinguish genius from talent. 

S. T. Coleridge. 



LIGHTS AND SHADES. 

Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train ; 

Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain ; 

These, mixed with art, and to due bounds confined. 

Make and maintain the balance of the mind ; 

The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife 

Gives all the strength and colour of our life. 

Pope. 



BLENDING. 

Extremes in nature equal ends produce ; 

In man they join to some mysterious use ; 

Though each by turns the other's bounds invade, 

As in some well-wrought picture light and shade, 

And oft so mix, the difference is too nice 

Where ends the virtue or begins the vice. 

Pope. 



209 



CHARACTER OF TRUTH. 

The soul alone can imprint upon the body the charac- 
ter and expression of truth ; an attitude that is not formed 
by feeling is a falsehood, it is a counterfeit. A painter 
who is desirous of expressing in his designs this charac- 
ter of truth, can never succeed, if he has not before his 
eyes attitudes animated by sentiment, or does not supply 
this by the powers of a lively and well-directed imagi- 
nation. Winkelman. 



A TRANSIENT FLOWER. 

I SAW her in her beauty's spring, 

When, like a half-blown rose 
That promise gives of blossoming, 

And ever fairer grows, 
Fairer and brighter every hour 

She grew before our sight- — 
Then bloomed like that same regal ilo\Yer 

In loveliness and light ! 

I saw her in her summer's prime ; 

O ! who could see and not confess. 
In gazing on those matchless charms, 

The power of woman's loveliness ! 
■^ * * * * * 

She had no autumn — not a storm 

Darkened her youthful happiness ; 
No winter came to bend that form, 

Or silver o'er a single tress, 
18* 



210 

Or pale that cheek, or dim that eye, 
Or bid the smile of beauty fly. 
She did not fade — no, not for her 

To waste and pine in slow decay ; 
But fair and good she bloomed a while, 

Then sunk to rest — and passed away. 

Anon. 



TASTE AND AVARICE. 

Taste is, perhaps, the best corrective of avarice ; and 

that probably is one reason why, in commercial states, 

it is so little esteemed. The Muse and Mammon cannot 

be worshipped at the same altar. A love for the Arts 

excludes all grosser passions from the soul. Taste is the 

angel that drives the money-changers out of the temple 

of Mind, and leaves it to the possession of every human 

virtue. 

M. A. Shee. 



GREECE. 

Land of the pencil and the lyre. 

The marble and the dome ! 
Whose name is to the muse a fire. 

Whose temples are a home : 
Clime of a wealth unbought I 

Where genius long enshrined 

His treasury of thought, 

The Peru of the mind ! 

P. M. Wetmore. 



211 



MONUMENTS. 



When the veil of mortality descends upon splendid 

genius, that has long been devoted to the instruction and 

best interests of mankind, the noblest monument that can 

be erected to commemorate its worth and perpetuate its 

usefulness, is the collection of those productions which 

delighted and edified the world. 

Anon. 



NIGHT. 

How beautiful is night ! 
A dewy freshness fills the silent air, 
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, 

Breaks the serene of heaven : 
In full-orbed glory yonder moon divine 

Rolls through the dark blue depths. 

Beneath her steady ray 

The desert circle spreads, 

Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky. 

How beautiful is night ! 

R. Southey. 



DREAMS OF WISDOM. 

There are some subjects on which the philosopher is 
obliged to exercise nearly as much imagination as the 
poet ; for it is the only faculty by which he can expatiate 
upon them. * * * Space, immensity, infinity, pure, 
incorporeal intelligence, matter created out of nothing. 



212 

innumerable systems of worlds, and innumerable orders 
of beings ; — where is the mind strong enough to grapple 
with such ideas as these ? They at once entice and over- 
whelm us. Reason copes with them till she is exhausted, 
and then gives us over to conjecture. Hence, invention 
at times takes the place of induction, and the man of 
wisdom has his dreams as well as the man of fancy. 

J, M. Good. 



A MOTHER'S PORTRAIT. 

O ! THAT those lips had language ! Life has passed 

With me but roughly since I heard thee last. 

Those lips are thine — thy own sweet smiles I see, 

The same, that oft in childhood solaced me ; 

Voice only fails, else how distinct they say, 

" Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away !'* 

The meek intelligence of those dear eyes 

(Blest be the art that can immortalize, 

The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim 

To quench it) here shines on me still the same. 

Faithful remembrancer of one so dear, 

welcome guest, though unexpected here ! 
Who bidd'st me honour with an artless song. 
Affectionate, a mother lost so long. 

1 will obey, not willingly alone. 

But gladly, as the precept were her own : 
And, while that face renews my filial grief. 
Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief, 
Shall steep me in Elysian revery, 
A momentary dream that thou art she. 



213 

My mother ! when I learned that thou wast dead, 
Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed ? 

* * * * *• -^ 
Perhaps thou gavest me, unseen, a kiss ; 
Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss — 
Ah ! that maternal smile ! it answers — Yes. 

* * * * * * 
By contemplation's help, not sought in vain, 

I seem to live my childhood o'er again ; 

To have renewed the joys that once were mine, 

Without the aid of violating thine ; 

And, while the wings of fancy still are free, 

And I can view this mimic show of thee. 

Time has but half succeeded in his theft — 

Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left. 

Cowper 

THE UNIVERSE. 

We call ourselves lords of the creation ; nor ought we 
at any time, with affected abjection, to degrade or despise 
the high gift of a rational and immortal existence. Yet, 
what is the visible creation ? by whom peopled ? and 
where are its entrances, and outgoings ? Turn wher- 
ever we will, we are equally confounded and over- 
powered : the little and the great are alike beyond our 
comprehension. If we take the microscope, it unfolds 
to us living beings, probably endowed with as complex 
and perfect a structure as the whale or elephant, so 
minute that a million of millions of them do not occupy 
a bulk larger than a common grain of sand. If we ex- 
change the microscope for the telescope, we behold man 



214 

himself reduced to a comparative scale of almost infinitely 
smaller dimensions, fixed to a minute planet that is 
scarcely perceptible throughout the vast extent of the 
solar system ; while this system itself forms but an in- 
sensible point in the multitudinous marshallings of groups 
of worlds upon groups of worlds, above, below, and on 
every side of us, that spread through all the immensity 
of space, and in sublime, though silent harmony declare 

the glorv of God. 

J. M. Good. 



VARIETY. 

The earth was made so various, that the mind 

Of desultory man, studious of change. 

And pleased with novelty, might be indulged. 

Prospects, however lovely, may be seen 

Till half their beauties fade ; the weary sight, 

Too well acquainted with their smiles, slides off 

Fastidious, seeking less familiar scenes. 

Cowper. 



CHARM OF POETRY. 

Virtue sinks deepest into the heart of man when it 
comes recommended by the powerful charms of poetry. 
The most active principle in our mind is the imagination ; 
to it a good poet makes his court perpetually, and by this 
faculty takes care to gain it first. Our passions and in- 
clinations come over next ; and our reason surrenders 
itself, with pleasure, in the end. Thus, the whole soul 
is insensibly betrayed into morality, by bribing the fancy 



215 

with beautiful and agreeable images of those very things 

that in the books of the philosophers appear austere. 

* * * The poets strew the rough paths of virtue so full 

of flowers, that we are not sensible of the uneasiness of 

them ; and imagine ourselves in the midst of pleasures, 

and the most bewitching allurements, at the time we are 

making progress in the severest duties of life. 

Steele. 



INDIAN WARRIOE. 

He stood upon that soil— 
His birth-place and his home of many years ; 
His look was calm — his eyes, unwet by tears, 

Were dimmed by time and toil. 

* * * *• * * 

A stranger race had sprung 
Like phantoms on his sight — the white men came, 
His lands were gone — he quaffed the liquid flame, 

Till madness round him clung. 

;;;- * * * * * 

The twilight found him there. 

The moon went down upon the desolate one, 

And morning came — the wandering chief was gone 

To die in his despair ! 

P.M. Wetmore. 



BEAUTY. 

The bloom and softness of the female sex are not to 
be expected among the lower classes of life, whose faces 
are exposed to the rudeness of the climate, and whose 



216 

features are sometimes contracted by want, and some- 
times hardened by blasts. Supreme beauty is seldom 
found in cottages, or workshops, even where no real 
hardships are suffered. To expand the human face to 
its full perfection, it seems necessary that the mind should 
co-operate by placidness of content, or consciousness of 
superiority. Johnson. 



RIVAL SISTERS. 

True poetry the painter's power displays ; 

True painting emulates the poet's lays ; 

The rival sisters, fond of equal fame, 

Alternate change their office and their name ; 

Bid silent poetry the canvass warm. 

The tuneful page with speaking picture charm. 

* * * * * * 

Such powers, such praises, heaven-born pair ! belong 

To magic colour and creative song. 

Mason's Dufresnoy, 



The advantage which poetry possesses over painting, 
in continued narration and successive impression, cannot 
be advanced as a peculiar merit of the poet, since it re- 
sults from the nature of language, and is common to both. 
The eye of the painter is required to be as much more 
sensible and acute than the eye of the poet, as the accu- 
racy of him who imitates should exceed that of him who 
only describes. What is the verbal expression of a pas- 
sion, compared to its visible presence ; the narration of 
an action, to the action itself brought before your view ? 
What are the "verba ardentiae" of the poet, to the breath- 



217 

ing beauties, the living lustre of the pencil, rivalling the 
noblest productions of nature, expressing the characteris- 
tics of matter and mind, the powers of soul, the perfection 
of form, the brightest bloom of colour, the golden glow 
of light? Can the airy shadows of poetical imagery be 
compared with the embodied realities of art ? 

Where the poet cursorily observes, the painter studies 
intensely ; what the one carries loosely in his memory, 
the other stamps upon his soul. The forms and combi- 
nations of things, the accidents of light and colour, the 
relations of distance and degree, the passions, proportions, 
and properties of men and animals; all the phenomena 
of "the visible diurnal sphere," the painter must trea- 
sure up in his mind in clear, distinct, indelible impres- 
sions, and with the powers of a magician, call them up 
at a moment's warning, like " spirits from the vasty 
deep" of his imagination, 

" To do his bidding, and abide his will." 



If to become familiar with the writings of the ancients , to 
comprehend their beauties, and compose in their lan- 
guage, be the proudest attainments of the scholar and the 
poet, how much more worthy of admiration is the skill 
of him who pours forth his ideas in the language of 
nature ! * * * Poetry appears to be the first powerful 
product of human genius : painting, the last and most 
delicate of its oifspring. * * * Great poets, like the stars 
of the morning, are often seen to shine in the early dawn 
of cultivation ; great painters gild the horizon of society 

only in its meridian blaze. 

M. A. Shee. 

19 



218 



INFLUENCE OF TASTE. 

TnorGH men of delicate taste be rare, they are easily 
to be distinguished in society by the soundness of their 
understanding, and the superiority of their faculties above 
the rest of mankind. The ascendant which they ac- 
quire gives a prevalence to that lively approbation, with 
which they receive any production of genius, and renders 
it generally predominant. Many men, when left to 
themselves, have but a faint and dubious perception of 
beauty, who yet are capable of relishing any fine stroke 

w^hich is pointed out to them. 

Hume. 



MUSIC OF NATURE. 

But who the melodies of morn can tell ? 

The wild brook bubbling down the mountain side ; 
The lowing herd ; the sheepfold's simple bell ; 

The pipe of early shepherd dim descried 
In the lone valley ; echoing far and wide 

The clamorous horn along the cliffs above ; 
The hollow murmur of the ocean-tide ; 

The hum of bees, and linnet's lay of love, 
And the full choir that wakes the universal grove. 

Beattie, 



TRUTH AND LOVE. 

How sweet the words of truth 

Breathed from the lips of love ! 

Beattie. 



219 



WORKS THAT LIVE. 

The great artist moulders in the tomb, but his works 

live in the self-sustaining freshness of nature. Age after 

age passes away, and they still beam forth in beauty 

upon one generation after another. In calm disdain, as 

it were, of the petty and transitory interests, pursuits, 

opinions, passions of the day, they continue with unde- 

caying power, as years roll on, to address themselves to 

the great principles of our common nature, soothing the 

cares, elevating the thoughts, stirring in the very depth 

of the heart the thrilling emotions of natural sympathy, 

or awakening there the sleeping sense of the great, the 

sublime, or the holy. 

Verplanck. 

PEALE'S WASHINGTON. 

Though many a pencil plied its eager skill. 
To rescue from the oblivious shade of time 

The much-loved form of Washington, — yet still 
They pictured not his countenance sublime ; 

When Heaven removed him from our view, whose 
worth 

Found not a parallel o'er all the earth. 

A nation's gratitude embalmed his fame. 

And every line that faintly marked his form, 

And every sound that vibrated his name, 

Was precious, and made patriot bosoms warm ; 

Yet, though his memory lived and wider spread. 

No portrait beamed the glory of his head. 



220 

At length an Artist, and the last to whom 
The hero sat, his cherished task surveyed, 

(For faithful memory triumphed o'er the tomb ;) 
And, happily refining light and shade, 

With full impassioned heart and pencil, one 

Proud effort gave to sight our Washington ! 



Anon. 



BEAUTY OF THE MIND. 

It is superfluous to decorate woman so highly for 
early youth ; youth is itself a decoration. We mistak- 
ingly adorn most that part of life which least requires it, 
and neglect to provide for that which will want it most. 
It is for that sober period, when life has lost its fresh- 
ness, the passions their intenseness, and the spirits their 
hilarity, that we should be preparing. Our wisdom 
would be, to anticipate the wants of middle life, to lay 
in a store of notions, ideas, principles, and habits, which 
may preserve, or transfer to the mind, that affection 
which was at first partly attracted by the person. But 
to add a vacant mind to a form which has ceased to please, 
to provide no subsidiary aid to beauty while it lasts, and 
especially no substitute when it is departed, is to render 

life comfortless, and marriage dreary. 

H. More. 



KEYS. 

Truth is the key of art, as knowledge is of power. 

Sir T. Lawrence. 



221 



NATURAL SCENERY. 

O ! HOW canst thou renounce the boundless store 

Of charms which nature to her votary yields ; 
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, 

The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields ; 

All that the genial ray of morning gilds, 
And all that echoes to the song of even, 

All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, 
And all the dread magnificence of heaven, — 
O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven ? 

These charms shall work thy soul's eternal health 

And love, and gentleness, and joy impart; 
But these thou must renounce, if lust of wealth 

E'er win its way to thy corrupted heart ; 

For, ah ! it poisons like a scorpion's dart ; 
Prompting the ungenerous wish, the selfish scheme, 

The stern resolve, unmoved by pity's smart. 
The troublous day, and long distressful dream. 

Beattie. 



FASHIONS. 

Besides the universal practice of copying the ancients, 

there has prevailed in every age a particular species of 

fiction. At one time, all truth was conveyed in allegory ; 

at another, nothing was seen but in a vision ; at one 

period, all the poets followed sheep, and every event 

produced a pastoral ; at another, they busied themselves 

wholly in giving directions to a painter. 

1 9* Johnson. 



222 



SLEEP AND DEATH. 

How wonderful is death, 
Death and his brother sleep ! 

One, pale as yonder waning moon, 
With lips of lurid blue ; 

The other, rosy as the morn 

When, throned on ocean's wave, 
It blushes o'er the world ; 

Yet both so passing* wonderful ! 



SIMPLICITY. 



Shelley. 



Those compositions which we read the oftenest, and 
which every man of taste has got by heart, have the re- 
commendation of simplicity, and have nothing surprising 
in the thought, when divested of that elegance of expres- 
sion, and harmony of numbers, with which it is clothed. 
If the merit of the composition lie in a point of wit, it 
may strike at first ; but the mind anticipates the thought 
in the second perusal, and is no longer affected by it. 

Hume. 



SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 

Whose genius raised his country's name, 
Refined her taste, and led her arts to fame ; 
Whose powers unrivalled envy's self disarmed, 
Whose pen instructed, and whose pencil charmed 



223 

Hail, star of art, by whose instinctive ray. 
Our boreal lights were kindled into day ; 
Reynolds ! where'er thy radiant spirit flies, 
By seraphs welcomed midst acclaiming skies ; 

vjt y^ ij^ vjc *jv ijt 

Whether on Titian's golden pinion borne. 

Bathed in the bloom of heaven's immortal morn, 

Thou sunward take thy sympathetic flight, 

To sport amid the progeny of light ; 

Or rapt to thy loved Buonoroti's car. 

Midst epic glories flaming from afar ; 

With him in awful frenzy fired to rove 

The regions of sublimity above. 

Seize grandeur's form, astride the lightning's blast, 

On death's dark verge, or danger's summit cast — 

Immortal spirit ! * * * * 

M. A, Shee. 



BENEVOLENCE. 

That man deserves the thanks of his country who 
connects with his own the good of others. The philoso- 
pher enlightens the world ; the manufacturer employs 
the needy, and the merchant gratifies the rich, by pro- 
curing them the rarities of every clime. But the miser, 
although he may be no burden on society, yet, thinking 
only of himself, afl'ords to no one else either profit or 
pleasure. As it is not the lot of any one in this world 
to have a very large share of happiness, that man will of 
course have the largest portion who makes himself a part- 
ner in the happiness of others. The benevolent are 

sharers in every one's joys. 

J. Northcote. 



224 



LIGHTS AND SHADES. 

The gloomiest day hath gleams of light — 
The darkest wave hath bright foam near it ; 

And twinkles through the darkest night, 
Some solitary star to cheer it. 

The gloomiest soul is not all gloom — 
The saddest heart is not all sadness ; 

And sweetly o'er the darkest doom 

There shines some lingering beam of gladness. 

Despair is never quite despair ; 

Nor life nor death the future closes ; 
And round the shadowy brow of care 

Wild Hope and Fancy twine their roses. 

Mrs. Hemans. 



BOOKS AND PICTURES. 

A GREAT collection of paintings is like a great library. 
There is much trash in both, (that of the palace Pitti, 
however, is, to an extraordinary extent, an exception 
from this remark ;) many things ordinary, and some 
things glorious. * * * Some passages of the book, some 
figure of the painting, or even sometimes only a single 
hand in a picture — ^that is finely done. Neither the great 
painter nor the great author always does things worthy 
of himself. Both are artists ; and is not the latter an 
artist with greater advantages ? The painter can do little 
more than exhibit one thought, in one single light ; and 
it must be a thought, too, with which the world is already 



225 

familiar. But the writer may unfold, explain, modify, 

enlarge, originate — give to the world new regions of the 

beau ideal and the beautiful; and minister, through every 

avenue of reason, imagination, passion, to the world's 

improvement and happiness, 

0. Dewey. 



HOME. 

Home of our childhood ! how affection clings 
And hovers round thee with her seraph wings ! 
Dearer thy hills, though clad in autumn brown, 
Than fairest summits which the cedars crown ! 
Sweeter the fragrance of thy summer breeze, . 
Than all Arabia breathes along the seas ! 
The stranger's gale wafts home the exile's sigh, 
For the heart's temple is its own blue sky ! 

O. W. Holmes. 



THE AMATEUR. 

A MAN may be an amateur, without the skill and prac- 
tice of the painter, or the knowledge of the connois- 
seur. His love for the art must be founded upon a know- 
ledge of the principles of painting ; but he does not, like 
the connoisseur, profess himself master of the technical 
discernment which distinguishes, by the handling, or the 
canvass, the originality of the performance. Neither does 
he burden his memory with names and dates, but leaves 
them to the dealer and the collector. His business is 
with the qualities and the merits of the picture, new or old. 
He differs from the connoisseur in his critical acumen ; 



226 

and his admiration of a work is for its beauties rather 
than its scarcity ; and he has little esteem for dry exam- 
ples by the old masters, further than belongs to their 
character as marking the progress of art, or the improve- 
ments of his favourite study. * * * The amateur, as 
well as the connoisseur, can admire the hasty sketches 
of the master ; but he does not pretend to see miracles 
as the accidents of his pencil ; it is with a quiet feeling 
rather than with a rapturous heat that he views the works 

of art. 

Library of the Fine Arts. 



PORTRAIT OF AN UNKNOWN. 
•* She was a phantom of delight." 

Image of one, who lived of yore : 

Hail to that lovely mien, 
Once quick and conscious ; — now no more 

On land or ocean seen ! 

•;^ * * * * * 

Thou art no child of fancy : — thou 

The very look dost wear, 
That gave enchantment to a brow, 

Wreathed with luxuriant hair ; 
Lips of the morn embathed in dew, 
And eyes of evening's starry blue ; 
* * * * * * 

And who was she, in virgin prime. 

And May of womanhood. 
Whose roses here, unplucked by time, 

In shadowy tints have stood ? 



227 

To bridal bloom her strength had sprung, 
Behold her, beautiful and young ! 

* * * * * * 
The pencil's cunning art 

Can but a single glance express, 

One motion of the heart ; 
A smile, a blush, — a transient grace 
Of air, and attitude, and face — 
One passion's changing colour mix ; 
One moment's flight for ages fix. 

* « * * * * 
The dead are like the stars by day ; 

Withdrawn from mortal eye, 
But not extinct, they hold their way 

In glory through the sky : 
Spirits, from bondage thus set free. 
Vanish amid immensity, 
Where human thought, like human sight, 
Fails to pursue their trackless flight. 

* * •*• * * * 
Of her of whom these pictured lines 

A faint resemblance form ; 
Fair as the second rainbow shines 

Aloof amid the storm ; 
Of her, this " shadow of a shade," 
Like its original must fade. 
And she, forgotten when unseen, 

Shall be as if she ne'er had been. 

Montgomery. 



228 



MAGNIFICENT OBSCURITY. 

No place affords a more striking conviction of the 
vanity of human hopes, than a public library ; for who 
can see the wall crowded on every side by mighty vo- 
lumes, the works of laborious meditation and accurate 
inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue, and 
preserved only to mcrease the pomp of learning, without 
considering how many hours have been wasted in vain 
endeavours, how often imagination has anticipated the 
praises of futurity, how many statues have risen to the 
eye of vanity, how many ideal converts have elevated 
zeal, how often witTias exulted in the eternal infamy of 
his antagonists, and dogmatism has delighted in the 
gradual advances of his authority, the immutability of his 

decrees, and the perpetuity of his power ? 

Johnson. 



THE SEA. 

Turn to the watery world ! but who to thee 

(A wonder yet unviewed) shall paint — the sea ? 

Various and vast, sublime in all its forms. 

When lulled by zephyrs, or when roused by storms, 

Its colours changing, when from clouds and sun 

Shades after shades upon the surface run ; 

Embrowned and horrid now, and now serene. 

In limpid blue, and evanescent green ; 

And oft the foggy banks on ocean lie. 

Lift the fair sail, and cheat the experienced eye. 

Crahhe. 



229 



THE SHIP. 



What person, of the least reflecting turn, can look 
upon that perfect and most beautiful of all artificial ob- 
jects, the sailing ship, with the quiet and ordinary inte- 
rest that other works inspire ? Who can behold her 
gliding proudly and gracefully over the bosom of the 
deep, braving its perils and disregarding the opposition 
even of the element by which she is propelled, and at 
length arriving safely, freighted with all her treasures 
of comforts, luxuries, and intellectual stores, — -without 
pausing to admire and to bless this great link in the chain 

of our civilized existence ? 

Lieutenant Slidell. 



THE SHIP YARD. 

See ! the long keel, which soon the waves must hide ; 
See ! the strong ribs which form the roomy side ; 
Bolts yielding slowly to the sturdiest stroke. 
And planks which curve and crackle in the smoke; 
Around the whole rise cloudy wreaths, and far 
Bear the warm pungence of the o'er-boiling tar. 

Crahbe, 



BIOGRAPHY. 

Those parallel circumstances and kindred images to 
which we readily conform our minds, are, above all 
other writings, to be found in narratives of the lives of 
particular persons ; and therefore no species of writing 

20 



230 

seems more worthy of cultivation than biography, since 

none can be more delightful or more useful ; none can 

more certainly enchain the heart by irresistible interest, 

or more widely diffuse instruction to every diversity of 

condition. * * * We are all prompted by the same 

motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated 

by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and 

seduced by pleasure. 

Johnson. 



ADAM AWAKENING EVE. 

Now morn her rosy steps in the eastern clime 
Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl, 
When Adam waked ; * * ^ 

* * * So much the more 
His wonder was to find unvvakened Eve, 
With tresses discomposed, and glowing cheek, 
As through unquiet rest : he on his side 
Leaning, half-raised, with looks of cordial love 
Hung over her enamoured, and beheld 
Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep. 
Shot forth peculiar graces ; then, with voice 
Mild, as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes. 
Her hand soft touching, whispered thus : Awake, 

* * * * * * 
Awake ; the morning shines, and the fresh field 
Calls us ; we lose the prime, to mark how spring 
Our tended plants, -x- * * * 
How nature paints her colours, how the bee 

Sits on the bloom, extracting liquid sweet. 

Milton. 



231 



A LOVER. 

I KNOW that thou art beautiful : 

Thine eye a deep bhie one, 
And thy voice so melting, as to lull 

The soul with its sweet tone : 
And thy hair, as dark as raven's wing, 

Clusters a noble brow : 

I never saw an earthly thing 

So beautiful as thou ' 

Anon. 



STANDARD OF BEAUTY. 

Though the principles of taste be universal, and near- 
ly, if not entirely, the same in all men; yet few are 
qualified to give judgment on any work of art, or esta- 
blish their own sentiment as the standard of beauty. 
The organs of intellectual sensation are seldom so per- 
fect as to allow the general principles the full play, and 
produce a feeling correspondent to those principles. 
They either labour under some defect, or are vitiated by 
some disorder; and by that means, excite a sentiment 
which may be pronounced erroneous. When the critic 
has no delicacy, he judges without any distinction, and 
is only aiFected by the grosser and more palpable quali- 
ties of the object: the finer touches pass unnoticed, and 
disregarded. Where he is not aided by practice, his 
verdict is attended with confusion and hesitation. Where 
no comparison has been employed, the most frivolous 
beauties, such as rather merit the name of defects, are 



232 

the object of his admiration. Where he lies under the 
influence of prejudice, all his natural sentiments are 
perverted. Where good sense is wanting, he is not 
qualified to discern the beauties of design and reasoning, 
which are the highest and most excellent. Under some 
or other of these imperfections, the generality of men 
labour ; and hence a true judge in the finer arts is ob- 
served, even during the most polished ages, to be so rare 
a character : strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, 
improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and 
cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics to this 
valuable character : and the joint verdict of such, wher- 
ever they are to be found, is the true standard of taste 

and beauty. 

Hume. 



MEDIUM OF VISION. 

The difference is as great between 
The optics seeing as the objects seen. 
All manners take a tincture from our own. 
Or come discoloured, through our passions shown ; 
Or fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies. 
Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes. 

Pope. 



SCULPTURE. 

Incomprehensible power of genius that workest thy 
own immortality ! that in thy sublime aspirations after 
perfection, seemest to divest thyself of the trammels of 
matter, to soar even into the heavens to behold revealed 



233 

the blissful creations of fancy, the purer worlds of beauty 

and truth, and to bring down upon earth the fair forms 

of light and love that dwell in brightness there. * * * 

What art thou, and whither dost thou tend ? * * * We 

know thy immortality — we acknowledge thy influence — 

we feel thy power ! 

Forsyth. 



IMAGE OF HEAVEN. 

Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, 
As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake ; 
The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds. 
Another still, and still another spreads ; 
Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace ; 
His country next, and next all human race ; 
Wide and more wide, the o'erflowings of the mind 
Take every creature in of every kind : 
Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blessed, 
And Heaven beholds its image in his breast. 

Pope. 



WEALTH OF TASTE. 

A MAN of polite imagination is let into a great many 
pleasures that the vulgar are not capable of receiving. 
He can converse with a picture, and find an agreeable 
companion in a statue. He meets with a secret refresh- 
ment in a description, and often feels a greater satisfac- 
tion in the prospects of fields and meadows, than another 
does in the possession. It gives him, indeed, a kind of 
property in every thing he sees, and makes the most 

20* 



234 

rude uncultivated parts of nature administer to his plea- 
sures, so that he looks upon the world, as it were, in 
another light, and discovers in it a multitude of charms 
that conceal themselves from the generality of mankind. 

Addison. 



THE PAINTER-POET* 

When Kneller had portrayed the fair 
With gothic taste yet noble air, 
Pope Avove a garland round his head. 
And crowned him with the illustrious dead ; 
And he to whom ten monarchs sat, 
Rose less in fame by this than that. 
.Tervas from friendship's partial heart 
Received the meed unwon by art ; 
Yet shall his praise remain as long 
As matchless Pope's immortal song. 
More justly valued Reynolds knew 
Mason, a friend and poet too ; 
Yet he with polished numbers fraught 
From Fresnoy's close instructive thought, 
Borrowed new glory from his track. 
And every ray came coloured back. 

What painters now their poets fire ? 
The colours glow, but wake no lyre ; 
Alas ! no kindred bards rehearse 
The pencil's praise in raptured verse — 

* On reading, in 1806, the beautiful poem called "Rhymes on 
Art," by Mr., now Sir Martin Archer Shee, President of the Royal 
Academy. 



235 

Dull may the painter plod, nor hear 
Sweet music's soothing cadence near ; 
Till rapt, inspired, he seize the lyre, 
And painting breathe poetic fire ! 
Then, mounting on congenial wing, 
Thus taught to feel, may dare to sing : 
Hence Fresnoy gained from willing fame 
A double wreath, another name. 

Whence swells that strain sublime on art, 

That guides the mind and fills the heart ? 

Yon skylight room the echo flings — 

'Tis Shee so well that paints and sings. 

Ye fond, which shall we most admire. 

His pencil's harmony, or lyre ? 

In which discover more of grace. 

The polished verse, or magic face ; 

The air of elegance that reigns 

'Mid social hues, or feeling strains? 

The soul transfused in verse, or, warm 

With mimic life, fair nature's form ? 

The sister arts more fond unite. 

Grow brighter in their mutual light, 

And beauty with new charms invest ; 

So well he sings who paints her best.* R. P. 



MODESTY. 

Modesty is to merit as shades in a picture ; giving it 
strength and beauty. Bruyere. 

* At that time Mr. Shee stood unrivalled for the beauty of his 
female portraits. 



236 



SHADOWS OF LIFE. 

Descriptions of life, without its cares and sorrows, 

would appear to us little less wearisome and unnatural 

than landscapes without shadow ; but those which are 

varied by the sombre colouring borrowed by experience 

from the hand of grief, exhibit the principles of harmony 

and the essential characteristics of truth. 

-S. Stickney. 



KINDRED ARTS. 

The kindred arts to please thee shall conspire, 

One dip the pencil, and one string the lyre. 

Pope. 



Painting and poetry are near allied ; 
The kindred arts two sister muses guide ; 
This charms the eye, that steals upon the ear ; 
The sounds are tuned, and colours blended here. 
This with a silent touch enchants our eyes, 
And bids a gayer, brighter world arise : 
That, less allied to sense, with deeper art. 
Can pierce the close recesses of the heart — 

» ^ * * * -* 

To life adds motion, and to beauty soul, 
And breathes a spirit through the finished whole ; 
Each perfect acts, in friendly union joined \ — 
This gives Amanda's form, and that her mind. 

A. L. Barhauld. 



237 



GOOD SENSE AND GENIUS. 

Genius is a rare and precious gem, of which few 
know the worth ; it is fitter for the cabinet of the con- 
noisseur, than for the commerce of mankind. Good 
sense is a bank-bill, convenient for change, negotiable at 
all times, and current in all places. It knows the value 
of small things, and considers that an aggregate of them 
makes up the sum of human affairs. * * « Good sense 
has not so piercing an eye, but it has as clear a sight : it 
does not penetrate so deeply, but as far as it does see, it 
discerns distinctly. Good sense is a judicious mechanic, 
who can produce beauty and convenience out of suitable 
means ; but genius (I speak with reverence of the im- 
measurable distance) bears some remote resemblance to 
the Divine Architect, who produced perfection of beauty 
without any visible materials ; " who spake, and it was 
created;" who said, " Let it be, and it was." 

H. More. 



THE JUST MAN. 

Peace to the just man's memory, — ^let it grow 

Greener with years, and blossom through the flight 

Of ages ; let the mimic canvass show 

His calm benevolent features ; let the light 
Stream on his deeds of love, that shunned the sight 

Of all but Heaven ; and, in the book of fame, 
The glorious record of his virtues write, 

And hold it up to men, and bid them claim 
A palm like his, and catch from him the hallowed flame. 

W. C. Bryant. 



238 



MATERIALS OF POETRY. 

To a poet nothing can be useless. Whatever is beau- 
tiful, and whatever is dreadful, must be familiar to his 
imagination : he must be conversant with all that is 
awfully vast, or elegantly little. The plants of the gar- 
den, the animals of the wood, the minerals of the earth, 
and meteors of the sky, must all concur to store his mind 
with inexhaustible variety ; * * * and he who knows 
most, will have most power of diversifying his scenes, 
and of gratifying his readers with remote allusions and 

unexpected instruction. 

Dr. Johnson. 



THE COURT OF DEATH.* 

Though the unsparing hand of time 
Flings o'er earth his mantle gray ; 
Though towns and towers — though rocks sublime 
Perish beneath his all-consuming sway ; 
Man ! glorious in his strength ! Man, creature of a day, 
Imparts to perishable things a charm 
That doth the desolating power disarm, 
And snatch from glory's sun a never-dying ray ! 

See, where those sable folds involve 
Yon awful being as he sits enthroned ; 

Upon his brow immovable resolve. 

Unyielding sternness — sympathy disowned ; 

* A large figurative painting, by Rembrandt Peale. 



239 

Resistless strength, perennial youth are found. 
Moveth that arm of might ? then nations perish ; 
Then severed are the ties we love to cherish, 

And broken-hearted anguish wails around ! 

Now view yon form in graceful bending ; 

Say, is that young smiler Pleasure ? 
Tells she not of bliss unending 

Within that vase's ruby treasure ? 
Curls are hers of wavy lightness ; 
Eyes whose faintest glance is brightness ; 
Cheeks of love's own roseate hues ; 
Lips Avhose parting joys diffuse ! 
O, when such a form is willing 
To press the cup that hand is filling, 
How can youth find power to fly. 
And not 'mid pleasure's votaries die ! 

Hark ! 'tis the trumpet's voice 

Re-echoing through the cave from far. 
That bids yon fiend rejoice. 

Whose blazing torches light forth War ! 
His haughty soul is chained to passion's car : 
O God ! that face, hoAV terrible to see ! 
There mercy finds no place — there pity cannot be ,* 
But pride, revenge, ambition, hatred, jar. 

With locks of silver, there 

Age gently presses near the throne : 

'Tis not for him to feel a fear ; 
Nor comes he tremblingly alone : 



240 

His foot is in oblivion's water ; 

But see, his loveliest, holiest daughter. 
Virtue, aids him ; vrhile upraising 
Eyes oft turned toward heaven in praising, 

Saying, Almighty ! may thy will be done. 

Br. Godman. 



LOVE. 

In the days of chivalry, when men, following the 
standard of false glory, maintained their possessions by 
force of arms, sacrificed ease, honesty, or life to the 
laws of honour, and the adventures of knight-errantry, 
love was worshipped as a goddess, whose inspiration 
endowed her votaries with superhuman power, and whose 
protection was a shield of adamant. * * * There is in 
its elevated nature, a character of constancy, truth, and 
dignity, which constitutes the essence of its being, and 
no pure eye can behold it robbed of these, without 

sorrow and indignation. 

S. Stickney. 

They sin who tell us love can die. 

With life all other passions fly. 

All others are but vanity. 

In heaven ambition cannot dwell, 

Nor avarice in the depths of hell. 

Earthly these passions, as of earth. 

They perish where they have their birth. 

But love is indestructible ; 

Its holy flame for ever burneth, 

From heaven it came, to heaven returneth. 

Southey. 



241 



HO MAG E. 

Seek for a dark and downcast eye, 

A glance 'mongst men the mildest, 
Seek for a bearing haught and high, 

Can daunt and awe the wildest. 
Seek one whose soul in tenderness 

Is steeped — who to the lyre 
Can pour out song as fast and bright 

As heaven can pour its fire — 
Seek him, and when thou find'st him, kneel. 
Though thou hast gold spurs on thy heel. 

A. Cunningham. 

THE FAIR QUAKER. 

She was a fair young girl — yet on her brow 

No pale pearl shone — a blemish on the pure 

And snowy lustre of its living light — 

No radiant gem shone beautifully through 

The shadowing of her tresses, as a star 

Through the dark sky of midnight ; and no wreath 

Of coral circled on her queenly neck, 

In mockery of the glowing cheek and lip, 

Whose hue the fairy guardian of the flowers 

Might never rival, when her delicate touch 

Tinges the rose of spring-time. 

Unadorned 
Save by her youthful charms, and with a garb 
Simple as nature's self, why turn to her 

21 



242 

The proud and gifted, and the versed in all 
The pageantry of fashion ? 

She hath not 
Moved dov^^n the dance to music, when the hall 
Is lighted up like sunshine, and the thrill 
Of the light viol, and the mellow flute, 
And the deep tones of manhood softened down 
To very music, melt upon the ear. 
She has not mingled with the hollow world. 
Nor tampered with its mockeries, until all 
The delicate perceptions of the heart — 
The innate modesty — the watchful sense 
Of maiden dignity, are lost within 
The maze of fashion and the din of crowds. 

Yet beauty hath its homage. Kings have bowed 
From the tall majesty of ancient thrones 
With a prostrated knee ; yea, cast aside 
The awfulness of time-created power, 
For the regardful glances of a child. 
Yea — the high ones and powerful of earth — 
The helmed sons of victory-^the grave 
And schooled philosophers — the giant men 
Of overmastering intellect, have turned 
Each from the separate idol of his high 
And vehement ambition, for the low 
Idolatry of human loveliness ; 
And bartered the sublimity of mind — 
The godlike and commanding intellect 
Which nation's knelt to — for a woman's tear, 
A soft-toned answer, or seductive smile. 



243 

And in the chastened beauty of that eye, 
And in the beautiful play of that red lip. 
And in the quiet smile, and in the voice. 
Sweet as the tuneful greeting of a bird 
To the first flowers of spring-time, there is more 
Than the perfection of the painter's skill. 
Or statuary's moulding — Mind is there — 
The pure and holy attributes of soul — 
The seal of virtue — the exceeding grace 
Of meekness blended with a maiden pride. 
Nor deem ye that beneath the gentle smile 
And the calm temper of a chastened mind. 
No warmth of passion kindles, and no tide 
Of quick and earnest feeling courses on 
From the warm heart's pulsations. There are springs 
Of deep and pure affection, hidden now, 
Within that quiet bosom, which but wait 
The thrilling of some kindly touch, to flow 

Like waters from the desert-rock of old. 

Arion. 



AMERICANS. 

In our position as a nation, in our natural situation as 
a country, things are arrayed for us on a scale of equal 
magnificence, wealth, and beauty. Verily we have a 
goodly heritage. We are placed amid boundless plains, 
noble mountain ranges, stupendous river-courses, lovely 
valleys, and scenes of perhaps never surpassed beauty. 
May our national character take its impression and hue 
from these bounties of Providence, from this glory and 
goodliness of nature ! May it be generous and liberal ; 



244 

may it be lofty and humble, manly and beautiful, strong 
and graceful, powerful and free ! May there be in us and 
among us, restraint without sourness, freedom without 
licentiousness, refinement without effeminacy, virtue 
without stoicism, and religion without superstition. 

0. Dewey, 



THE UNITED STATES. 

Here the free spirit of mankind, at length. 

Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place 
A limit to the giant's unchained strength, 

Or curb his swiftness in the forward race ? 

Far, like the comet's way through infinite space, 
Stretches the long untravelled path of light 

Into the depth of ages ; we may trace, 
Distant, the brightening glory of its flight, 
Till the receding rays are lost to human sight. 

W. C. Bryant 

INSPIRATION. 

We are perpetually hearing of the inspiration, rather 
than the cultivation of genius ; and that the merit of a 
painting, rather than the misfortune of the painter, con- 
sists in his being self-taught. The only excuse that can 
be made for so glaring a misuse of language, is, that it 
may serve the purpose of exciting in the vulgar mind 
higher notions of the influence of intellectual power. 
The constant labour and concentrated application which 
marked the lives of the most eminent painters, prove 
that immediate inspiration had little to do with the work 



245 

of their hands. Indeed, I know not what mspiration is, 
with regard to the fine arts ; unless it be the first moving 
spring of action — the desire — the thirst of excellence, 
obtained at any cost, which operates upon the talent and 
the will, prompting the one to seek, and the other to 
submit to, all the laborious, irksome, and difficult means 
which are necessary for the attainment of excellence. 

5^. Stickney. 



BEAUTY AND GOOD SENSE. 

Say, why are beauties praised and honoured most ? 
The wise man's passion, and the vain man's boast? 
Why decked with all that land or sea afford ? 
Why angels called, and angel-like adored 1 
How vain are all these glories, all our pains. 
Unless good sense preserve what beauty gains 1 

Pope. 



EXCITEMENT. 

Entertainment and information are not all that the 
mind requires at the hand of an artist. We wish to be 
elevated by contemplating what is noble, to be warmed 
by the presence of the heroic, and charmed and made 
happy by the sight of purity and loveliness. We desire 
to share in the lofty movements of fine minds — to have 
communion with their images of what is godlike — and 
to take a part in the rapture of their love and the ecsta- 
sies of all their musings. This is the chief end of high 
poetry, of high painting, and of high sculpture. 

A. Cunningham. 

21* 



246 



STARS. 



Ye stars ! which are the poetry of heaven ! 

If in your bright leaves we would read the fate 
Of men and empires, — 'tis to be forgiven, 

That in our aspiration to be great, 

Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, 
And claim a kindred with you ; for ye are 

A beauty and a mystery, and create 

In us such love and reverence from afar, 

That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves 

a star. 

Byron. 

MEN OF GENIUS. 

Great talents, when directed to improve and adorn 
society, can never be too highly esteemed, nor too con- 
spicuously distinguished. Men of genius are seldom 
mercenary : as the characters which characterize them 
are above all price, so money alone, however necessary 
to their wants, can never be considered the adequate 
reward of their exertions. They require and deserve a 
nobler recompense — the homage of wisdom and virtue — 
the respect of their own times, and the regard of poste- 
rity. * * *- Men of genius are luminous points on the 
great disk of society, which shine even after the sun of 
power and prosperity has withdrawn its beams, and 
rescue the nations they adorn, from total darkness in the 
long eclipse of time. 

Commerce may make a people rich, and power may 



247 

render them formidable ; in the one case, they excite 
envy without admiration ; in the other, fear without re- 
spect. But exploits of intellect only can secure that 
genuine estimation, that grateful homage of the heart, 
which it is almost as honourable to pay as to receive. 
The powers of genius consecrate the claims of greatness, 

invest wealth with dignity, and add veneration. 

M. A. Shee. 



THE PAINTER'S SENTIMENT.* 

The beautiful still is ours ! 
While the stream shall flow, and the sky shall glow. 
The BEAUTIFUL Still is ours ! 
Whatever is fair, or soft, or bright. 
In the lap of day, or the arms of night. 

Bulwer. 



UTILITY AND ORNAMENT. 

A PURE taste is of the first order of national benefits : 
it is a talisman which adorns every thing that it touches, 
and which touches every thing within the magic circle 
of its sway : there is nothing too high for its influence, 
or too low for its attention ; and while it mounts on 
wings of fire with the poet and the painter, to the highest 
heaven of invention, it descends with humble diligence 
to the aid of the mechanic at the anvil and the loom. 

The ancients, sensible of its importance, neglected no 
means of cherishing those pursuits, through which only, 

* Borrowed from the song of the Athenian in " The Last Days of 
Pompeii." 



248 

is it effectually to be gained. * * * They cultivated the 
utilities of life in its ornaments, and took the most cer- 
tain mode of supplying the circulation of improvement 
by invigorating the source from which it flowed. Thus 
enlightened in their views, they were rewarded in a de- 
gree proportioned to the wisdom which governed them. 
A peculiar character of elegance and propriety pervaded 
the whole circle of their arts, which made even trifles 
interesting : and so little have the moderns to pride them- 
selves on their advancement in these respects, that to 
have successfully imitated their productions, is the boast 

of our most ingenious manufactures. 

M. A. Shee. 



KINDRED OBJECTS. 

Thus kindred objects kindred thoughts inspire. 
As summer clouds flash forth electric fire ; 

* * * * * * 

And hence the calm delight the Portrait gives : 
We gaze on every feature till it lives ! 
Still the fond lover views the absent maid ; 
And the lost friend still lingers in his shade ! 



Rogers. 



FANCY PIECES. 

Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging 
our reflections on them ; as he who in a melancholy 
fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wain- 
scot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, 
make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied. 

Swift. 



249 



TRUE GREATNESS. 



Ye proud, ye selfish, ye severe, 

How vain your mask of state ! 
The good alone have joy sincere, 

The good alone are great : 
Great, when, amid the vale of peace, 
They bid the plaint of sorrow cease, 

And hear the voice of artless praise. 

Dr. Beattie. 



MAGNIFICENCE. 

It is the policy of a great nation to be liberal and 
magnificent ; to be free of her rewards, splendid in her 
establishments, and gorgeous in her public works. These 
are not the expenses that sap and mine the foundations 
of public prosperity ; that break in upon the capital, or 
lay waste the income of a state : they may be said to 
arise in her most enlightened views of general advantage ; 
to be among her best and most profitable speculations : 
they produce large returns of respect and consideration 
from our neighbours and competitors — of patriotic exulta- 
tion among ourselves : they make men proud of their 
country, and, from priding in it, prompt in its defence : 
they play upon all the chords of generous feeling— ele- 
vate us above the animal and the machine, and make us 

triumph in the powers and attributes of man. 

M. A. Shee. 



250 



NATIONAL CHARACTER. 

To appreciate the character of nations, as of men, it 
is necessary to take into our consideration the whole of 
its component parts. We must observe whether a nation 
has exerted itself in arms, excelled in science, been su- 
perior in ingenious industry, or, finally, eminent in the 
last accomplishment of our civil state. 

* * * * * * 

The Grecian commonwealths, while they maintained 
their liberty, were the most heroic confederacy that ever 
existed ; they were the politest, the bravest, and the 
wisest of men : in the short space of little more than one 
century, they became such statesmen, warriors, orators, 
historians, physicians, poets, critics, painters, sculptors, 
architects, and philosophers, that one can hardly help 
considering that golden period as a providential event in 
honour of human nature, to show to what perfection the 
species might ascend. 

* * * * •:^ * 

" Noble contention ! who should most excel 
In government well poised, adjusted best 
To public weal ; in countries cultured high ; 
In ornamented towns, where order reigns, 
Free social life, and polished manners fair ; 
In exercise and arms ; arms only drawn 
For common Greece, to quell the Turkish pride ; 
In moral science, and in graceful arts." 

* * * * * * 

The fame handed down to us of the Athenian state, is 
that which presents itself to our reflection under the most 



251 

grateful hues. When we combine in one idea their 
conspicuous examples of valour, of public spirit, and its 
attendant self-denial ; with their knowledge equally pro- 
found and polite ; their refined taste, and their unrivalled 
eminence in the fine arts ; — the assemblage cannot but 
form in our minds and hearts a national character, which 
it would be a prouder and more gratifying boast to sur- 
pass, than any other with which we are acquainted. 

P. Hoare. 



VISION OF ART. 

I DREAMT that I was admitted into a long spacious 
gallery, which had one side covered with pieces of all 
the famous painters who are now living, and the other 
with the works of the greatest masters who are dead. 
On the side of the living, I saw several persons busy in 
drawing, colouring, and designing. On the side of the 
dead painters, I could not discover more than one person 
at work, who was exceedingly slow in his motions, and 
wonderfully nice in his touches. 

I was resolved to examine the several artists that stood 
before me, and accordingly applied myself to the side of 
the living. The first I observed at work in this part of 
the gallery was Vanity, with his hair tied behind him in 
a riband, and dressed like a Frenchman. All the faces 
he drew were very remarkable for their smiles, and a 
certain smirking air which he bestowed indifferently on 
every age and degree of either sex. The toujours gai 
appeared even in his judges, bishops, and privy-counsel- 
lors. In a word, all his men were petits-maitres, and 
all his women coquettes. The drapery of his figures 



252 

was extremely well suited to his faces, and was made up 
of all the glaring colours that could be mixed together ; 
every part of the dress was in a flutter, and endeavoured 
to distinguish itself above the rest. 

On the left hand of Vanity stood a laborious workman, 
who I found was his humble admirer, and copied after 
him. He was dressed like a German, and had a very 
hard name, that sounded something like Stupidity. 

The third artist that I looked over was Fantasque, 
dressed like a Venetian scaramouch. He had an excel- 
lent hand at chimera/iand dealt very much in distortions 
and grimaces. He would sometimes affright himself 
with the phantoms that flowed from his pencil. In 
short, the most elaborate of his pieces was at best but a 
terrifying dream ; and one could say nothing more of 
his finest figures, than that they were agreeable monsters. 

The fourth person I examined was very remarkable 
for his hasty hand, which left his pictures so unfinished 
that the beauty in the picture (which was designed to 
continue as a monument of it to posterity) faded sooner 
than in the person after whom it was drawn. He made 
so much haste to despatch his business, that he neither 
gave himself time to clean his pencils, nor mix his 
colours. The name of this expeditious workman was 
Avarice. 

Not far from this artist I saw another of quite a differ- 
ent nature, who was dressed in the habit of a Dutchman, 
and known by the name of Industry. His figures were 
wonderfully laboured. If he drew the portraiture of a 
man, he did not omit a single hair in his face ; if the 
figure of a ship, there was not a rope among the 
tackle that escaped him. He had likewise hung a great 



253 

part of the wall with night-pieces, that seemed to show 
themselves by the candles which were lighted up in 
several parts of them ; and were so inflamed by the smi- 
shine which accidentally fell upon them, that at first 
sight I could scarce forbear crying out " Fire." 

The five foregoing artists were the most considerable 
on this side the gallery ; there were, indeed, several 
others whom I had not time to look into. One of them, 
however, I could not forbear observing, who was very 
busy in retouching the finest pieces, though he produced 
no originals of his own. His pencil aggravated every 
feature that was before overcharged, loaded every defect, 
and poisoned every colour it touched. Though this 
workman did so much mischief on the side of the living, 
he never turned his eye toward that of the dead. His 
name was Envy. 

Having taken a cursory view of one side of the gallery, 
I turned myself to that which was filled by the works of 
those great masters that were dead ; when immediately 
I fancied myself standing before a multitude of specta- 
tors, and thousands of eyes looking upon me at once : 
for all before me appeared so like men and women, that 
I almost forgot they were pictures. Raphael's figures 
stood in one row, Titian's in another, Guido Reni's in a 
third. One part of the wall was peopled by Annibal 
Carrachi, another by Corregio, and another by Rubens. 
To be short, there was not a great master among the 
dead Avho had not contributed to the embellishment of 
this side of the gallery. * * * 

Observing an old man (who was the same person I 
before mentioned, as the only artist that was at work on 
this side the gallery) creeping up and down, from one 

22 



254 

picture to another, and retouching all the fine pieces that 
stood before me ; I could not but be very attentive to all 
his motions. I found his pencil was so very light, that 
it worked imperceptibly, and after a thousand touches, 
scarce produced any visible effect in the picture on which 
he was employed. However, as he busied himself in- 
cessantly, and repeated touch after touch without rest or 
intermission, he wore off insensibly every little disagree- 
able gloss that hung upon a figure. He also added such 
a beautiful brown to the shades, and mellowness to the 
colours, that he made every picture appear more perfect 
than when it came fresh from the master's pencil. I 
could not forbear looking upon the face of this ancient 
workman, and immediately, by the long lock of hair 
upon his forehead, discovered him to be Time. Whether 
It were because the thread of my dream was at an end, I 
cannot tell, but upon my taking a survey of this imagi- 
nary old man, my sleep left me. 

Addison. 



v"^^ 



INDEX. 



Preface 

Soul of Beauty 

Poet of Nature 

Course of Refinement 

Memory 

Value of Portraits 

Style 

Perception of Beauty . 

Venus of Apelles . 

Painting-room . 

Truth 

Curiosity 

Alloy of Bliss 

Mutual Dependence , 

Mountain Bard . 

Judgment in Composition 

Music at Midnight 

Pleasure of Travel 

Antiquities 

Painting 

Antiquity . 

Poet of Nature . 

Perseverance 

Sense of Beauty 

Women and Pictures 

Church of the Carmelites 

Nature and Art . 

Study from Nature 

Sunsliine and Cloud 

Acquirements . 

Standard of Art . 

Genius . 

Mountain Top 

Artists . 





Page 


• 


3 


Hughes 


17 


. Montgomery . 


18 


Hume 


19 


. Rogers 


20 


Barry Cornwall . 


. 21 


Byron , 


— 


S. Stickney 


22 


. Cainpbell 


— 


W. Hazlitt 


. 23 


. Anon. . 


24 


Johnson 


— 


. Campbell 


25 


Johnson 


— 


. Pierpont 


26 


J. Beattic . 


— 


. Cowper 


27 


N. P. Willis 


— 


. T. Campbell . 


28 


C. Swain . 


—! 


. Westminster Review 


29 


Coicper 


30 


, Johnson 


— 


Akenside . 


. 31 


. Hannah More . 


— 


Rogers 


32 


. Hume . 


— 


Cowley 


as 


. Friendship's Offering 


— 


A. Cunningham . 


34 


. Pope 


— 


Anon. 


35 


. W. C. Bryant 


— 


Library of the Fine i 


h-ts 36 


2 


55 



256 



1^ 



Eye of Taste 
Portrait Painting 
Mary's Portrait . 
Progress of Intellect 
Poetry of Paradise 
Calpurnia 
Infant Beauty 
Women 
Filial Memory 
Fictions of Art . 
Youtli 
Dreams . 
Imagination 
Society . 

Charm of Distance 
Industry and Luxury 
Rainbow . 
Wife and Mother 
Poetic Pictures 
^Spirit of Painting 
Applause . 
Music . 
Scott's Pencil 
The Sketcher . 
Music 

Greek Statues . 
Taste and Art 
Daughters of Eve 
Solitude . 
Condition of Women 
To Sculpture 
Flowers 



A Fair Italian . 

Purpose of Painting 

Eve 

Mental Picturesque 

Harmony 

Shakspeare 

Memory in Art 

Portrait Painting . 

Power of Grace 

Materials . 

The Good and Fair 

Horizon of Life 

True Fiction . 

Chamber of Disease 



M. A. Shee 

William Cox 

Byron . 

Johnson 

Coicper , 

Pliny 

N. P. Willis . 

Johnson 

Anon. . 

Byrmi 

S. Slickney 

Byrcm 

Dugald Stewart 

Tlie Lounger 

Campbell 

Hume 

Campbell 

S. Stickney 

W. Alexis 

Bryant . ^^''. 

Johnson 

R.P.. 

Scott . 

Blessington 

Scott . . 

Bryant 

W. Emerson . 

Anon. 

Johnson 

North American Ret^ew 

L.S.. 

W. Hoioitt . 

Anon. . 

Percival 

Mis. Jameson . 

T. Moore . 

Mrs. Jameson . 



W. Irving . v . 

Robert Snow 

M. A. Shee 

Campbell . 

Library of the Fine Arts 

Rogers 

Johnson 

Amulet 

Johnson 



257 



"Poetry— Musi c— Sense 
Reminiscence 
Morning Haze 
Tears and Blushes 
Egypt— Greece— Italy 
Ambition . 

Example and Emulation 
Convivial Epitaph 
Chantry's Washington 
Face to Face 
Portraiture 
Human Capacity . 
Nothing Perfect 
Glass 
Sleep . 
Birth of Art 
Fancy . 

Delicacy of Taste 
Adam and Eve 
Sentiment of Beauty 
Hebrew Maiden 
Emulation . 
Washington . 
Memory 
Witch of Atlas 
Social Recreation 
Cultivation of Art 



Sculpture— Painting— Poetry 

Renown 

Man . 

Taste 



Mendicant Music 
Greece . 
The Sitter . 
Winter . 

Domestic Tyrant 
Sketch of Byron 
Masillon . 
Solitude 
Laughter . 
Critics . 
Ornaments 
Buffon . 
Painting , 
Definition ! 



22 



S. T. Coleridge 

Mrs. L. P. Smith 

Shelley 

Byrmt, . 

Dr. J. Johnson 

P.M. Wetmore 

Hume 

Goldsmith 

R.P. 

Barry Cornwall 

A. Cunningham 

Pope 



V 



Johnson 

Mrs. Hemans 

S. T. Coleridge 

P. M. Wetmore 

Hume . 

Milton 

Chalmers 

Byron 

Johnson 

Dr. Godman 

G. P. R James 

Shelley 

Johnson 

P. Hoare . 

Goldsmith 

Byron 

P. Hoare 

Young 

S. Stickney 

M. A. Shee . 

S. Stickney 

Byran 

Anon. . 

F. A. Kemhle 

Johnson 

Rogers 

J. D^Israeli 

Mrs. Hemans 

Addison 

Pope 

Addison 

Arnaud 

Campbell 

S. T. Coleridge 



Page 
66 

67 

68 

69 

70 
71 

72 

73 

74 

75 

76 
77 
78 
79 

80 

81 

82 
83 
84 

85 
86 

87 
88 
89 
90 

91 
92 



93 
94 
96 



258 



Natural and IMoral Harmony 

Colours of Life 

.Creation . 

Dreams of Love 

History— Landscape— Portrait 

The Enthusiast 

Cheerful Innocence 

JKemory's Spell 

Night 

The Good Side 

Light 

Washington Irving 

Silent Art . 

Popular Errors 

The Fanatic 

Learning 

Lords of the Earth ! 

Disposition 
■ Distant Music 

Wealth of Taste 

lanthe Asleep 

Pleasure and Instruction 

Consolation 

Bigotry 

Indolence . 

Gothic Architecture 
^fainting 

Striking Pictures 

The Invaders 

Example of Greece 

Burlesque ! 

Belisarius 

Happy Ignorance 

Modesty 

Flowers of the City 

Good Taste 

Grecian Models . 

Colloquial Wit 

The Ocean 

The Terrible in Art 

The Seasons 

Matter . 

Mental Portraiture 

Outline 

Imitation . 

Magnanimity . 



W. H. Furness 

O. W.Holmes 

J. Murtinewu, . 

Anon. 

B. Cornwall . 

Dr. Beattie 

Addison 

T. Moore . 

J. Montgomery 

Lavater 

T. Moore 

W. S. Somner 

T. Moore 

M. A. Shee 

T. Moore 

Johnson 

Byron . 

Johnson . . 

T. Moore 

J. D^Israeli 

Shelley . 

Winkclman 

Mrs. Hemans . 

Anon. 

Thoonson 

S. T. Coleridge 

P. M. Wetmore 

S. T. Coleridge 

P. M. Wetmore 

Winkelman 

Anon. . 

Droz 

Pope 

Droz 

W. C. Bryant 

G. Verplanck 

M. A. Shee 

Johnson 

Barry Cornwall 

Hume 

Montgomery . 

J. M. Good 

Pope 

Anon. 

J. Beattie 

Wordsworth 



97 



259 



Enthusiasm 

Sketch . 

Slattern 

True Taste 

Beauty and Virtue . . 

Portrait 

Divine Influence of Taste 

Changes of Fashion . 

Moral Perspective 

Gratitude . 
Light and Vision 
The Master Pencil 
Aristotle 

The Flower Spirit 
Pleasure 
YMusic 
'^he Storm Painter . 
Gothic Architecture 
The Conceit . 
Pictures in Churches 
The Forgotten One . 
Washington Irving's Pencil 

Voice of Nature 

Civilization 

The Herdsman 

Genius— Judgment— Taste 

The Beautiful World . 

National Pride 

Autumn Woods 

Portrait of Milton. 

Virtue . 
•oet and Painter . 

Comparison of Beauty 

To Genevra 

Anomaly 

Commerce and the Arts 

Wealth 

Mental Mirror 

Winter . 

Diligence . 

Beauty . 

Children . 

Hope . 

Occupation 

Truth . 



^: 





Page 


Bulwer . • 


121 


.V. P. Willis 


— 


Johnson 


122 


Pope 


. — 


W. Emerson . 


123 


J. Pierpont 


. — 


0. Dewey 


124 


J. D'Israeli 


. 125 


Prior . 


— 


Pope 


. 126 


Thomson 


— 


W. Emerson 


■ — 


Thomson 


127 


J. DUsraeli 


. — 


C. Swain 


128 


Johnson 


. 129 


F. G. Halleck . 


— 


F. Hemans 


. 130 


Blackwood's Magazine 


— 


0. W. Holmes 


. 131 


0. Dewey 


— 


Miss Landon 


. 132 


North American Revieu 


— 


W.C.BryaJit 


. 133 


G. Combe 


— 


Wordsworth 


. 134 


H. More 


— 


W. C. Bryant 


. 135 


G. Verplanck . 


— 


W. C. Bryant 


. 136 


Chateaubriand 


137 


Dr. Beattie 


. 138 


Mrs. Jameson . 


— 


Hume . "~ • 


. 139 


. Byron . 


140 


G. Combe . 


— 


. Cowper. 


141 


Johnson 


— 


. J. Northcote 


142 


Campbell . 


— 


. Johnson 


143 


Elphinston 


— 


. Campbell 


144 


. Johnson ' 


145 


W. C. Bryant 


— 



260 



Grecian Art 

Refleclion on the Water 

Reward of Labour 

Poetic Fables . 

Imagination 

Liberty 

Good-humour 

Spirit of Greece 

Collections of Portraits 

Emulation 

Paiud Modesty 

Dreams 

Civilization 

Lord Chatham 

Spring 

Memory 

Julius Caesar 

Music . 

Enthusiasm 

Woman 

AVilchery of Nature 

Love of an Artist 

Patriotism — Love 

Italy . 

Rise of Art 

The Golden Age 

Childhood . 

Understanding and Taste 

Discrimination 

Exercise 

Models 

Sentiment 

Cities 

Judgment 

Napoleon— St. Helena 

Activity 

Love and Beauty . 

Praise . 

A bright Eye 

Dress of Portraits 

Sunset 

Utility of the Arts 

Vision of Liberty . 

Unfinished Works 

Scenes of Childhood 

Ages of IMan . 



, M. A. Sfiee 

R. H. Dana ■^■'' 

, Hunie . 

O. W. Holmes \/ 

Droz 

Coicper 
, Johnson 

M. A. Sliee 
. J.n'Israeli . 

Mrs. Hematis 
. J. D'lsraeli 

Jones 
. Anon. 

Coicper 
, Johnson 

Rogers 
. Hothouse 

S. S.G.. 
, Filsosbome 

G. Mellen . 

S. Stickney 

R.P. 

Bulwer 

Byron 
. Hume . 

Bttlwer 
, Miss E. P. Peabody 

Hume 
. Johnson 

Dryden 
, G. Combe 

Mrs. Hale . 
, Cowper 

Steele 
, J. Piapont . N/ 

G. Cotnbe , 
. Byron . 

Johnson 
. 0. W. Holmes \f'. 

J. Beattie . 
. jJames C. Wliittier 

M. A. Shee 
. ^enry Ware^ Jr. 

' Pliny 
. Rogers . 

Droz 



261 



Canova's Helen . 
Music and Painting 
•^Music 
Association 
True Piety 
Sir T. Lawrence 
Obscurity . 
Evening 
Ideality 

Memory of Suffering 
Advantages of Travel 
Italy . 

Domestic Happiness 
Religion 
Refinement 
Venus de Medicis 
Poet and Artist 
■' Portrait of Christ 
The Painter's Light 
Vivacity 

Colours that Fade . 
Beauty of Truth 
The Orphan 
Person and Character 
Intellectual Beauty 
Woman 
Ornaments 
Simplicity 
Grave of Ambition 
Rome . 
Emilia 

John P. Kerable 
Sculpture— Education 
William Penn 
Employments of the Pencil 
Man 

The Portrait 
Beauty and Goodness 
Old Age . 
Sun of Art 
Moral Influence . 
Reminiscence 
Influence of the Arts 
Climate of Genius 
Public Tasie 
Obscurity 
The Head 





Page 


Byron , 


173 


S. Stickney 


. — 


Dr. Beattie . 


174 


Addison . 


. — 


Cowper 


175 


The Amulet 


. — 


Locke . 


176 


Byron 


— 


G. Combe 


177 


Rogers 


— 


Dr. J. Armstrong 


178 


Rogers 


— 


Johnson 


— 


Cowper 


. 179 


Spurzheim 


180 


Byron 


— 


Miss Purdoe . 


181 


Publius Lentulus 


— 


R.P.. 


182 


J. E. H. . 


. 183 


Pope . 


— 


SJiaftesbury 


. 184 


Shelley 


— 


Dr. Chatfield 


. 186 


Shelley 

W. Irving y. 


— 


. 187 


Pope '. 


— 


Hume 


. 188 


Blair . 


— 


Byron 


. 189 


Dr. Brome 


190 


T. Campbell 


. 191 


Addison 


— 


Miss Gould V . 


. 192 


M. A. Shee . . • 
Dr. Franklin '^ 


193 


— 


. L. E. Landon . 


194 


Steele 


. 195 


. Bryant 


— 


M. A. Shee .y, 

. Verplanck . V^ • 


. 196 


197 


Shelley 


— 


. M. A. Shee . 


198 




199 


Blair 


. 200 


. Addison 


— 



262 



Moments of Bliss 

Variety 

Raphael 

Taste— Genius 

Exhibition-Critics 

Music— Painting — Sculpture 

Picture of Life 

Scenery 

The Creation . 

Conversation 

Painters 

Impressions 

Lights and Shades 

Blending . 

Character of Truth 

A Tran=''ent Flower 

Taste and Avarice 

eece 
Monuments 
Night 

Dreams of Wisdom 
A Mother's Portrait 
The Universe . 
Variety 

Charm of Poetry 
Indian Warrior 
Beauty . 
Rival Sisters 



Influence of Taste 

Music of Nature 

Truth and Ixive . 

Works that Live 

Peale's Washington 

Beauty of ihe Mind 

Keys 

Natural Scenery 

Fashions 

Sleep and Death 

Simplicity 

Sir Joshua Reynolds 

Benevolence 

Lights and Shades 

Books and Pictures 

Home . 

The Amateur 

Portrait of an Unknown 



P. M. Wetmore 
M. A. S/iee . 



J. M. Good . 

Anon. 

Mrs. Jamescn 

Gray 

S. Stickney 

Montgomery 

H. More 

A. Cunningham 

S. T. Coleridge 

Pope 

Winkelman 

Anon. . 

M. A. Shee 

P. M. Wetmore 

Anon. 

R. Southey 

J. M. Good 

Cowper 

J. M. Good 

Cowper 

Steele 

P. M. Wetmore 

Johnson . 

Mason's Dvfresnoy 

M. A. Shee 

Hume . 

Beattie 



Verplanck 
Anon. . 
H. More . 
Sir T. Lawrence 
Beattie 
Johnson 
Shelley 

Hwyne . , 

M. A. Shee 
J. Northcote . 
Mrs. Hemans 
O. Dewey 
O. W. Holmes 
Library of the Fine Arts 
. Montgomery . 



y 



263 







Page 


Magnificent Obscurity . 


. Johnson . , 


. 228 


The Sea . . . . . 


Crabbe . . 


— 


The Ship . 


. Lieutenant Slidell 


. 229 


The Ship-Yard 


Crabbe % . 


. — 


Biography . . . • 


. Johnson , 


. ■ — 


Adam awakening Eve 


Milton . . 


230 


A Lover 


. Anon. 


. 231 


Standard of Beauty . 


Hume . 


— 


Medium of Vision 


. . . P(^e 


. 232 


Sculpture . . • 


Forsyth 


— 


Image of Heaven . 


. Pope 


. 233 


Wealth of Taste 


Addison 


— 


^he Painter-Poet - 


. R.P. 


. 234 


Modesty . . . « 


Bruyere 


235 


Shadows of Life . 


. B. Stickney 


. 236 


Kindred Arts . 


Pope . 


— 




. A. L. Barbauld . 
H. Mare 


•"''" ___ 


Good Sense and Genius 


2?-- 


The Just Man 


. W. C. Bryant . 


. — ^ 


Materials of Poetry . 


Dr. Johnson . 


238 


The Court of Death 


, Dr. Godman 


— 


Love .... 


S. Stickney 


240 


. 


, Southey . 


. — 


Homage 


, . A. Cunningham 


241 


The Fair Quaker 


. Anon. . ^. 


— 


Americans . . > 


0. Dewey V 
. W.C.Bryant r 


243 


The United States 


. 244 


Inspiration 


S. Stickney . 


— 


Beauty and Good Sense . 


. Pope 


. 245 


Excitement 


', A. Cunningham, 


— 


Stars 


, Byron 


. 246 


Men of Genius 


M.A.Shee . 


— 


^he Painter's Sentiment 


. Bulwer 


. 247 


Utility and Ornament 


M. A. Shee 


— 


Kindred Objects . 


. Rogers 


. 248 


Fancy Pieces . 


Swift . 


— 


True Greatness . 


, Dr. Beattie 


. 249 


Magnificence . . . . 


M. A. Shee . 


— 


National Character 


. P. Hoare . 


. 250 


Vision of Art . 


Addisoit 


251 



THE END. 



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